ACC Automation: PLC & Industrial Control Learning
Practical Tips and Techniques
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I’ve been around PLCs for a long time now, and I’ve watched a lot of people take their first run at programming one. PLC programming challenges affect everyone. Some come from an electrical background, some from IT, some from the maintenance shop floor, and some are students who have never wired a pushbutton in their … Read more
The ACC PLC Simulator now supports simulator gamepad input. Plug in any standard USB or Bluetooth controller, and you can drive PLC inputs, control analog values, navigate 3D scene cameras, and run your program without ever touching the keyboard. This works with Xbox controllers, PlayStation controllers, generic USB HID gamepads, and most Bluetooth controllers. There … Read more
This EMR Applications article was written by Chris Urban, an automation educator and PLC trainer with over 40 years of hands-on experience. Find Chris on YouTube and LinkedIn. — CU In the complex world of automation, reliability often boils down to a single, fundamental component: the electromechanical relay (EMR) contact. Whether you are troubleshooting a legacy system or … Read more
In this tutorial, I am going to walk you through the Conveyor Scene in the ACC PLC Simulator. This is a single-axis belt conveyor with proximity sensors at each end and a box that travels back and forth along the belt. You will write a ladder logic program that starts the conveyor, detects the box … Read more
This article was written by Chris Urban, an automation educator and PLC trainer with over 40 years of hands-on experience. Find Chris on YouTube and LinkedIn. — CU This is the fourth article in the relay series. If you missed the previous one, start here:The Relay Obituary? Not So Fast! Before diving into how relay contacts are used in … Read more
Almost every PLC program includes a timer instruction. The Productivity Mini PLC P1-M622-16DR (P1 Mini) offers several timer instructions. (P1 Timer) We discussed the Timed Coil (TMC) and Flasher Coil (FLS) in our last post as part of our discussion of contacts and coils. In this session, we will review the instructions for the Simple … Read more
In this tutorial, I will show you how to connect the ACC PLC Simulator’s 3D Control Panel Scene to the BRX Do-More PLC using Modbus TCP over Ethernet. We will use the Do-More Simulator that comes built into the Do-More Designer programming software. This means you don’t need any physical hardware. You will write real … Read more
Contact and coil instructions are in every PLC program. The Productivity Suite Software comprises more than 82 instructions, organized into 13 categories for the PLC. Contacts and Coils are two of those categories. Contact instructions include NO, NC, NO Edge, NC Edge, and Compare. Coil instructions include Out, Set, Reset, OR Out, Flasher, Debounce, Timed, … Read more
This article was written by Chris Urban, an automation educator and PLC trainer with over 40 years of hands-on experience. Find Chris on YouTube and LinkedIn. — CU Against the popular belief that relays are obsolete and too simple to discuss, there are people who think that after nearly 200 years, the relay is still not fully understood. This … Read more
ACC Automation is growing — and part of that growth is bringing in voices from outside my own experience. I want to introduce you to Chris Urban, an automation educator and PLC trainer based near Montreal, Quebec, who has been teaching technicians and engineers for over 30 years. Chris reached out after finding the ACC PLC Simulator, and … Read more