How do I create a "Time Value" VARIABLE for HART FMS/FM6 Hosts?

Modified on Thu, 21 Nov, 2019 at 8:26 AM

In HART 7, time value was introduced.

 

The version 5 and 6 ( *.fms, *.fm6 ) tokenizers do not support TYPE TIME_VALUE so the DD may use TYPE UNSIGNED_INTEGER.  For a DD to build all Encoded Formats (*.fms, *.fm6, *.fm8), the variables used for time must be conditionally defined based upon the tokenizer version.


Older HART EDD Host applications which support only  Encoded Formats *.fms, *.fm6 can only read a 4 byte unsigned integer in lieu of a time value (which is a 4 byte representation of time).

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For example

In order to read the “Time Value” for UPDATE_TIME_PERIOD in Command 54 using HART EDD Host applications that only support Tokenizer formats FMS or FM6 (i.e. Version 5 and 6), we will need to create an Unsigned Variable of 4 Bytes





1.    Create Two VARIABLEs:  TIME_VALUE and UNSIGNED_INTEGER (4)


Create a VARIABLE  of type TIME_VALUE and another VARIABLE of type UNSIGNED_INTEGER, 4 bytes and specify each VARIABLE a unique “name” (see below).


Correct

 

 

Incorrect


NOTE:  All VARIABLE names registered in a HART EDD must only have TYPE defined



 


2.    Create a conditional in each Device Variable collection


Reference the two VARIABLEs created in step 1 (above) in each support Device Variable collection


NOTE:  DO NOT create the conditional in the COMMAND



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