About Measurement Units
As a system engineer, you can use the Measurement Units feature to convert an entire project from one unit of measurement to another (for example Fahrenheit to Centigrade)...all at once. In fact, you can convert the measurement units for part of the project, a special area in the project, or the entire project, whatever is required at the time. The scope of the conversion depends solely on the measurement unit that will be converted and the points assigned to it.
One of the obvious advantages of this straightforward feature is that it can save you valuable time. For example
- When a project for an international company needs to be configured to operate in several countries that adhere to different measurement systems, you can use Measurement Units to quickly convert the entire project, to as many different measurement units, as necessary.
- When a project has several points that need to be converted and that have the same equivalents, you can use Measurement Units to specify the conversion in one place, at one time, for all the involved points.
Measurement Units conversion complements CIMPLICITY's other conversion feature, Engineering Unit (EU) conversion. Each serves a particular need. Both offer a wide range of conversion options.
EU conversion provides an exact way to specify a conversion for an individual point. (The EU conversion feature is in the Conversion tab of the Point Properties dialog box.)
Measurement Units provides an efficient way to specify a conversion for a specific unit of measurement.
For example, a PLC is hooked up to five different thermometers, each of which uniquely expresses temperature in counts. The system engineer configures each thermometer as a point and uses the EU conversion to create each point's unique conversion equation. Each equation converts the counts to Fahrenheit.
If the same PLC configuration needs to be used in a country that measures temperature in Centigrade, every Fahrenheit measurement must be converted. In this situation, the system engineer uses the Measurement Units feature. The engineer specifies only one configuration in one window, the Measurement Units window, to convert all five points from Fahrenheit to Centigrade. In addition, this one configuration will convert any other points in the project to which Fahrenheit is assigned.
To setup for a project wide conversion, you need to:
- Configure measurement systems and units.
- Specify an active measurement system for the project to use during runtime.
- Follow a few guidelines.
When the setup is completed and the configuration is updated, the project data automatically displays the correct units and labels for the specified measurement system.