Use references for the minimum and maximum limits of an analog input animation

Constant analog values and references are supported for the minimum and maximum limits of an analog user input animation. You configure these limits using the Input -> Analog Tagname dialog box.

A reference can either be a remote analog tag or a local analog tag like a memory tag or an I/O tag.

• When InTouch I/O tags are used for the minimum and maximum values, only the InTouch I/O tags are evaluated. If the I/O tag refers to a remote tag reference that is assigned a string value, then the I/O tag value is evaluated as 0.

• When remote tag references are used for the minimum and maximum values, the references are internally evaluated as strings. If the remote references are assigned with string values that fail to get converted to analog values, a warning message appears in the Logger. The Minimum and Maximum boxes show values based on the data type of the reference to which user input is configured.

• When the user input in the Minimum or Maximum field contains the letter ‘e’, the input is either a string or an exponential value. When the user input contains numbers followed by the letter ‘e’, followed by numbers (±N e ±N format, where N is a number), the user input is considered as an exponential value. When the user input containing ‘e’ contains any other alphabet (even another ‘e’), the user input is considered as a reference name.

If a reference goes into bad quality at run time, the following occurs.

For the reference in the Minimum box:

• If the primary reference of the animation is an InTouch tag, the tag’s configured minimum value is retrieved from the tag database and used for the minimum value.

• If the primary reference of the animation is an external reference, the minimum value of the data type is used. If the configured data point is a string, the last known value is used to determine the data type.

  • If the last known value contains a decimal point, the data type is real.

  • If the last known value does not contain a decimal point, the data type is an integer.

  • If there is no last known value, then integer is used.

For the reference in the Maximum box:

• If the primary reference of the animation is an InTouch tag, the tag’s configured maximum value is retrieved from the tag database and used for the maximum value.

• If the primary reference of the animation is an external reference, the maximum value of the data type is used. If the configured data point is a string, the last known value is used to determine the data type.

  • If the last known value contains a decimal point, the data type is real.

  • If the last known value does not contain a decimal point, the data type is an integer.

  • If there is no last known value, then integer is used.