A Complete Guide to Connected Components Workbench

Hello and welcome to another free post from KB Controls, the home of affordable and practical online PLC training. If you enjoy this post and want to get even more free content, check out our PLC Bootcamp. This free mini-course teaches you how to write and test your first PLC program using Studio 5000 Logix Designer.

In today’s post, I am going to give you an overview of Rockwell Automation’s Connected Components Workbench. This is the program and configuration software used for all of the products in Rockwell Automation’s Connected Components platform including Micro800 PLCs.

If you want to learn more about Micro800 PLCs, you can check out my previous post, “A Complete Guide to Micro800 PLCs”.

Let’s get started by talking about some of the general features of Connected Components Workbench.

General Features

Connected Components Workbench has been designed with small machine builders in mind. To help small machine builders get up and running quickly, Connected Components Workbench is;

Free and Easy to Install

You can download Connected Components Workbench for free from Rockwell Automation’s website and install it with a few clicks.

Once installed, you can use the software for free for an unlimited period.

Easy to Use

Connected Components Workbench is designed to be easy to use.

It is a common environment that is used to program PLCs, design HMIs, and configure intelligent devices like drives and safety relays.

The idea is that machine builders only have to use one intuitive piece of software for their complete machine development.

Easy to Program

Connected Components Workbench allows you to program Micro800 PLC using Ladder Diagram, Structured Text, and Function Block Diagram so you can use the language that best suits an application.

To help you get started, Rockwell Automation and its partners, have provided a large collection of sample code that is available to download and use in your applications.

Finally, Connected Components Workbench uses standard PLC Open motion instructions to make it easy to program motion control applications.

Supports Simulation

Connected Components Workbench has a built-in PLC simulator that allows you to test your projects without hardware.

The key takeaway from these features is that Connected Components Workbench is a PLC development environment with low barriers to entry. You can download and use it for free, you can use sample code to jump start your development, and you can use a PLC simulator to test your project before you purchase hardware.

Now that we have an idea of the general features, let’s look at some specific features of Connected Components Workbench.

Specific Features

Intuitive Layout

The Connected Components Workbench software displays the devices and program elements in a project in an organized tree view.

This allows you to easily view and manage project elements.

When a PLC is added to the Project Organizer, you can also access the PLC’s programs, variables, and user-defined function blocks from the Project Organizer.

From the Project Organizer, you can add and remove devices manually as well as discover devices on a network to upload into the project.

Programming

A Micro800 PLC supports multiple programs and each program uses a specific programming language.

When you open a program, the correct language editor opens in the application workspace. This lets you mix and match programming languages in a single project to select the best language for a specific task.

Typically, that means that you will use Ladder Diagram for Boolean logic, Function Block Diagram for process control, and Structured Text for motion control.

The Toolbox on the right is context-sensitive and contains the correct elements for the Language Editor.

User-Defined Blocks

Connected Components Workbench supports User-Defined Function Blocks, also known as UDFBs.

These are user-defined code blocks that let you reuse your code in a project or across multiple projects and provide a way to encapsulate complex logic with a well-defined interface.

UDFBs can be written in any programming language and there are a lot of sample UDFBs available at Rockwell Automation’s Sample Code Library.

Finally, let’s look at some other features of Connected Components Workbench that are not related to Micro800 PLCs.

Other Features

Start Up Wizards

Connected Components Workbench is used for more than programming Micro800 PLCs. It is also the configuration tool for certain Allen Bradley drives and intelligent devices.

When you add these devices to a project, start-up wizards simplify the configuration of the devices. There are start-up wizards available for many devices including PowerFlex drives and Kinetix servo drives.

HMI Editor

Connected Components Workbench is used to develop HMI applications for PanelView800 HMIs.

Since the HMI development for a machine is integrated in the same project as the controller, the PLC’s variable names can be directly referenced in the HMI project.

This saves time and reduces the complexity involved in mapping variables from the PLC to the HMI.

Documentation

Finally, Connected Components Workbench contains built-in documentation for all of its supported products.

Even without internet access, you can access all of the manuals for supported products.

You can also access contextual help by selecting a program element and pressing F1.

Developer Edition

The Standard Edition of Connected Components Workbench is completely free to use but there is also a premium Developer Edition of the software.

This Developer Edition has some additional capabilities including an archive manager, user-defined data types, and spy lists.

The good news is that projects created in Developer Edition are completely backwards compatible with Standard Edition so you can always open and edit a Connected Components Workbench project regardless of the edition that you have on your computer.

Wrap Up

In this post, I’ve introduced you to Connected Components Workbench, the design and configuration tool for Rockwell Automation’s Connected Components platform including Micro800 PLCs.

As well as introducing the software, I went through the key features of Connected Components Workbench.