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A PLC mirror is for a PLC what a contact mirror is for a contactor. In other words, it mirrors the I/O's of an I/O card, in a similar way as a contact mirror mirrors the contacts of a contactor or a relay.

 

While a contact mirror only mirrors connection point numbers, a PLC mirror contains much more information. For each I/O, the following information is handled, and mirrored:

 

•Connection point numbers

•I/O number (physical address)

•Symbol address

•Up to seven comment lines

 

The appearance of a PLC mirror can vary a lot. The IEC1082 standard symbol library contains a large set of PLC mirrors which covers practically all products that are available on the market. These standard mirrors have a neutral table-like appearance that fits any physical product, thereby reducing the need to create specific symbols for specific products.

 

The Symbol Generator supports two standard appearance variants. One is called horizontal, and the other vertical. The horizontal one is similar to the standard PLC mirrors. Creating PLC mirrors that are reasonably similar in appearance to one of those is therefore quicker and easier than any other variant. If you want an appearance of your own, you can use an option without graphics that let you draw your I/O's yourself, thereby allowing your imagination to freely explore an entire world of possibilities.

 

The figures below exemplify the two standard appearances.

 

 

 

Other appearances are thus also possible to achieve, but requires more work.

 

A need for user defined PLC mirrors could among other things stem from wishes of the following :

 

•A different graphical appearance

•A combination of multiple types of I/O's in the same PLC mirror

•A different number of I/O's

 

All I/O's in the standard PLC mirrors are of the same type. When you need I/O's of different types, you therefore combine multiple PLC mirrors.

 

Standard PLC mirrors for digital in- and outputs have 4, 8, or 16 I/O's. If you for example need 20 I/O's, you combine a PLC mirror with 16 I/O's with a mirror with a 4 I/O's.

 

Standard PLC mirrors for analogue in- and outputs have 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 I/O's, depending on the number of connection points per channel. You combine them in a similar manner.

 

The procedure of creating a PLC mirror is quite similar to how you create contact mirrors. Reading the description of how you do that could therefore be a good idea, as a preparation.

 

In  separate sub-topics listed below, you will find detailed descriptions how to create user defined PLC mirrors with standard appearances of two kinds.

 

•Horizontal PLC mirror with standard appearance (like the IEC1082 standard PLC mirrors)

•Vertical PLC mirror with standard graphics (default for vertical PLC mirrors)