SIMATIC AX XLad and Structured Text: One Function, Two Languages
August 21, 2026 — Move one Boolean pump permissive from Structured Text to SIMATIC AX XLad, keep its typed caller stable, inspect generated ST, and verify the result with S7, LLVM, and AxUnit.
SIMATIC AX Tank Demo: Building the Software Skeleton
July 21, 2026 — Build a compiling SIMATIC AX software skeleton with named UDTs, mapping functions, function block instances, global data, and a clear main-program scan order.
Siemens AX Libraries: Timers Are Packages, Not Magic Blocks
June 24, 2026 — Timer libraries in SIMATIC AX explained from a TIA Portal engineer point of view: packages, namespaces, documented timer function blocks, and why elapsed timer behavior needs runtime proof. Article 18 of the Studying SIMATIC AX series.
Initialization Patterns in SIMATIC AX — Startup Task and ProgramCycle
June 17, 2026 — Startup, ProgramCycle, and first-cycle initialization patterns explained from a TIA Portal engineer studying AX, with clear boundaries between Siemens task-library documentation and local build/test evidence. Article 17 of the Studying SIMATIC AX series.
Error Handling in SIMATIC AX - TRY/CATCH from a TIA Portal Lens
June 1, 2026 — The current tested SIMATIC AX ST compiler rejects general TRY/CATCH, so expected PLC fault conditions still need deterministic guard/report/recover logic, safe defaults, and alarm/status reporting. Article 16 of the Studying SIMATIC AX series.
Variables and the Type System in SIMATIC AX
May 11, 2026 — How SIMATIC AX organizes variables and types for TIA Portal engineers — VAR_INPUT/VAR_OUTPUT/VAR sections, VAR_GLOBAL and VAR_EXTERNAL contracts, STRUCT and ENUM patterns, typed literals, and the AT keyword for direct addresses. A practical mapping from TIA Portal mental models to AX text.
