ACC Automation: PLC & Industrial Control Learning
Practical Tips and Techniques
This offers ways in which you can learn PLC programming.
Just about every programmable logic controller (PLC) program will include a timer instruction. The Productivity 1000 Series PLC has several different timer instructions for your program. We discussed the timed coil (TMC) and flasher coil (FLS) last time as part of the contacts and coil discussion. (Contact and Coil Instructions – Video) We will now … Read more
We will now configure and operate Analog inputs and outputs on our BRX Do-More controller. One of the features of the BRX Series PLC is the ability to expand its capability to fit your application. This is easily done by “snap-on” modules that will fit on the side of the BRX MPU (Multi-Processor Unit). As … Read more
Modbus TCP will be used to connect AdvancedHMI to our BRX Do-More controller using Ethernet. Advanced HMI is a powerful, adaptable HMI/SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) development package that takes advantage of Visual Studio. There is no coding required and you can simply drag and drop items onto the page. The best thing is … Read more
We will now send email and text messages using our BRX Do-More controller. Sending email messages from the PLC sounds like an easy task. However, very few applications do this on the production floor. This is probably due to the networks involved, and user authentication can be complicated. In our example, we will use a … Read more
Data logging does not have to be complicated anymore. The BRX Do-More Series PLC can log your specific data up to 32 Gigabits on a Micro SD Card. It will store your data for future data analysis in a CSV (Comma Separated Value) Txt file based on time and/or event. This is all accomplished with … Read more
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We will now look at using serial Modbus RTU to communicate with a Solo process temperature controller using our BRX Do-More Controller. Serial communication instructions will allow you to send and receive serial data to an external device. The communication method that you set up can be ASCII or numeric (binary). ASCII (American Standard Code … Read more
We will now look at the drum instruction in our BRX Do-More Controller. Drum instructions are great tools when you have a simple sequence of events that need to occur at a set time interval or as a result of an event. They mimic an electromagnetic drum sequencer. The BRX Series PLC has a drum … Read more
We will now look at another way of programming our palletizer using the PLC. How many ways can you program the PLC for the same function? The answer is a lot of different ways. You can have ten different programmers working on the same program and get ten different automatic control PLC programs. Sure they … Read more
I have recently come across a free virtual plc simulator called PLC Fiddle. It will enable you to create simple PLC ladder logic code within your browser free. This is an ideal way in understanding PLC concepts for industrial automation. All of the basic PLC instructions that come with most plc units have been incorporated … Read more