Situational Awareness Projects > Configure Your Project > Configure Interlocks

Configure Interlocks

To configure Interlocks in your Citect SCADA project you need to complete the following:

  1. Configure the interlock using equipment references.
  2. Define the Equipment Runtime Parameter for the main Equipment if different than the default "Running". See the drop down below for more information.
  3. Configure an alarm on the item/tag of your main Equipment that will be affected by the interlock. For example, you would configure an alarm for Pump1.Running, or Valve1.Open. The alarm is then used to retrieve the time that the interlocked item was last started or stopped.
  4. Configure an alarm on each referenced item that has an interlock condition set e.g. Motor1.Stopped. The alarm is used to retrieve the time that the interlock event occurred, so that the interlocks can be ordered from first to last.

    5. When the alarm is triggered the interlock will become active.

    Note: It is recommended these alarms be hidden from the operator. To do this, assign the alarms their own category and set ShowOnactive to FALSE. See Add an Alarm Category.

    See Alarms for more information.


ClosedConfigure interlock using equipment references

To configure an interlock using equipment reference:

  1. In the System Model activity, select Equipment.
  2. On the menu below the Command Bar, select References.

    3. The list of equipment references will display in the Grid Editor.

  3. Add a row to the Grid Editor.
  4. Type the required information in each column, or in the Property Grid (see Define Equipment References for a description of the properties).
  5. In the Category column, enter one of the following types: Interlock.Process, Interlock.Safety, or Interlock.Permissive. Enter the whole name of the category type (for example, "Interlock.Pocess"). See Information Zone - Interlocks for definitions.
  6. Enter a description of the interlock in the Comment field. If no comment is entered the information zone at runtime will display the cluster.equipment.item name.
  7. If you want to bypass an interlock complete the following. If not continue to Step 8.
    8. Closed Bypass an interlock configuration
  8. If you want to bypass an interlock complete the following custom fields:

    9. Note: If you want to bypass an interlock you need to add variable tags for the bypass states for each referenced equipment. For example, for referenced equipment Motor1 you would configure four variable tags -one for each bypass state - BypassStatus, BypasCommand, RemoveBypassCommand and EnableBypass. See Add a Variable Tag for more information.

    • In Custom 1 - BypassStatus - Enter the name of the tag that controls the bypass status for the interlock.
    • In Custom 2 - BypassCommand - Enter the name of the tag that when written to will bypass an interlock.
    • In Custom 3 - RemoveBypassCommand - Enter the name of the tag that when written to will remove a bypass for an interlock.
    • In Custom 4 - EnableBypass/Reset - Enter the name of a tag to disable the bypass command.If this tag exists, then the bypass and reset commands will be enabled if the value of this tag is 1.

      • Note: If custom field 4 is empty, and any of the remaining fields are completed, then the "Reset" and "Bypass" commands will be enabled. Otherwise, if the four custom fields are complete, then the "Reset" and "Bypass" commands will be disabled unless the tag specified in this field is 1.

  9. Continue to complete the property grid.
  10. Click Save.

ClosedDefine the Equipment Runtime Parameter for the main Equipment

Interlocks use item names to indicate an interlock condition on the main Equipment. You define the item name for the target equipment using the Equipment Runtime Parameters Grid.

To manually define an equipment runtime parameter:

  1. In the System Model activity, select Equipment.
  2. On the menu below the Command Bar, select Runtime Parameters.

    3. The list of equipment runtime parameters will display in the Grid Editor.

  3. Add a row to the Grid Editor.
  4. In the Cluster field enter the name of the cluster
  5. In the Equipment field enter the name of your target equipment e.g. Pump1, Valve1
  6. In the Name field enter "Interlock_StateItem". This indicates that an alternative item name (entered in the Value column) has been defined.
  7. In the Value field enter the value of the item name e.g. Open

    8. If the Name and/or Value fields are left blank then the default item name value "Running" will be used to indicate an interlock condition. However, precedence may change if the global INI parameter [Interlock]StateItem has been set. Refer to [Interlock]StateItem for more information.

  8. Set the IsTag field to FALSE.

    9. Note:If this field is set to TRUE, interlocks will not function correctly.

  9. Click Save

For more information on Equipment Runtime Parameters refer to Manually Define Equipment Runtime Parameters.

See Also

Information Zone - Interlocks
Equipment References

Published June 2018