34

digits in case of an 18-bit value, the missing digits may just be shown as 0 or blanked digits. The last two bits of

numbers.

5.3.4 BCD
The BCD format is similar to FIXBCD except that the first nibble is used to specify the decimal point (floating
point). The decimal point specification uses the same coding as the four least significant bits of the FIXBCD
data type specification except that all 16 possible point values may be used not just up to 1000B so that
values up to ± 15½ digits) are possible in a 66-bit telegram (64 + 2 bit).

16 bit Optional 16 bit 8 bit 8 bit 8 bit 8 bit 2 bit

4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 4 bit 2 bit
Point MSD Digit Digit Digit Digit Digit Digit Digit Digit Digit Digit Digit Digit Digit Digit - 1

Fig. 5.10

If the fieldbus Max-i is used, a telegram length above 34 bits is only possible in modem mode where the
telegram may be any number of bytes.
If floating point BCD is not needed, it is recommended to use FIXBCD because of the higher safety, less risk of
misreading (no floating point) and one more digit for a given number of words.

5.3.5 TIME
A time stamp uses three 16-bit words or two 16-bit words plus two bits as shown below:

XML
Boolean Year Month Day Hour Minutes Seconds Milliseconds
2 bits 10 bits 4 bits 5 bits 5 bits 6 bits 6 bits 10 bits

Max-i
Day Hour Minutes Seconds Milliseconds Boolean
5 bits 5 bits 6 bits 6 bits 10 bits 2 bits

Fig. 5.11

The two most significant bits may hold a Boolean 2-bit value. If a TIME value is transmitted on Max-i, the most
significant word is omitted and any Boolean value is instead transmitted in the extra 2 bits.
Note that the time is counted directly in years (3 least significant digits), months (1-12), days (1-31), hours (0-
23), minutes (0-59), seconds (0-59) and milliseconds (0-999). This is only a minor complication of the counter,
but it saves many calculations later on. Day = 0 is used to indicate an invalid time.

5.3.6 PATTERN
This data type is used for all kind of patterns of bits, nibbles, bytes and words. Such data usually require a
special knowledge for data interpretation and are therefore not directly useable as process values.
The data type PATTERN may for example be used for:
Groups of binary or Boolean values.