DPAD

All objects within the TF8040 project structure are given a name and a description text. A common practice in building automation is to name the objects according to a user address key (BAS). Depending on the complexity of the project-specific BAS, TF8040 offers various options for processing the BAS. The BAS is referred to as DPAD (Data Point Addressing Description) in TwinCAT 3 Building Automation.

Generic generation

Generic generation of ObjectName and Description with the DPAD (Data Point Addressing Description).

This method is suitable for a project in which the BAS can be generated from a concatenation of the levels of the project structure.

This requires that the order of the levels in the project structure matches the order of the BAS text concatenations.

Individual texts for e.g. circuit diagram pages, device identification from the circuit diagram etc. can only be processed with greater effort due to the generic approach of DPAD.

With the DPAD mechanism, it should be noted that the initial texts of the objects are only transferred to the persistent data of the controller in the first cycle of the controller. The initial data is only reloaded after an overall reset of the controller.

As the concatenation mechanism accesses the persistent data, changes do not take effect even after the texts have been concatenated again.

Editing with the Symbol Explorer

The Symbol Explorer is an excellent tool for editing data.

All control parameters, including texts, can be conveniently edited using special lists. It is possible to export the data to a csv file, edit it and then load it back into the controller.