Using Equipment

ST blocks drive machines by reading and writing equipment signals — a motor's coil, its overload, its running feedback — through a dotted path.

The equipment path

An equipment signal is addressed as Equipment.Interface.Variable. For a Motor built from the IMotor interface, its coil is Motor.IMotor.Coil and its running feedback is Motor.IMotor.Running. (New to interfaces and equipment? Start with Interfaces and Equipment.)

Reading and writing signals

Write a command, read a feedback — a complete motor start/stop with an overload interlock:

(* Start/stop a motor, with an overload interlock *)
IF Param.Start AND NOT Motor.IMotor.Overload THEN
    Motor.IMotor.Coil := TRUE;
ELSIF Param.Stop OR Motor.IMotor.Overload THEN
    Motor.IMotor.Coil := FALSE;
END_IF;

Global.MachineRunning := Motor.IMotor.Running;

Equipment names are placeholders — mappable per instance

In a standalone block, Motor is a template placeholder. When you place the block in a composite, StateTick surfaces it as an equipment ref that you map to a concrete equipment instance — and every placement can point at a different instance. The same LineControl block drives Conveyor1 in one instance and Conveyor2 in another, with no change to the code.