Omron C20K, C28K, C40K, C60K Troubleshooting

The Omron C20K, C28K, C40K, and C60K shoebox programmable logic controllers have been discontinued since March of 2002. These Omron ‘K’ series PLCs were popular controllers and have been in installations for over 25 years. We will take a look at this Omron PLC and review some troubleshooting techniques. Planning for the eventual fatal failure … Read more

Horner XL4 Timers and Counters – All In One

Timers and counters are used in the majority of PLC programs. We will not look at how timers and counters can be programmed in the Horner XL4 OCS all-in-one controller.

Horner XL4 User Interface – All In One

We will now look at the Horner XL4 user interface. The HMI (Human Machine Interface) part of the XL4 all in one controller will be what the operator views. We will look at the features of the display and learn how our program will control what the display will show.

Horner XL4 Numbering System and Addressing

We will now look at the Horner XL4 numbering system and addressing. Data is stored in different memory-type locations called registers. The registers can be either bits or words (16bit). Multiple registers can be used together to store a 32-bit value. (Double word) This all in one controller has several additional registers to handle some … Read more

The 7 Essential Parts of a PLC System

We will now look at the parts of a PLC system. When I was in school PLCs were just in their infancy. We were taught that the PLC consisted of the central processing unit (CPU), analog and digital inputs, and outputs. Everything was programmed with dedicated handheld devices and/or software devices on specialized hardware. We … Read more

Horner XL4 Establishing Communication

We program the Horner XL4 OCS all-in-one controller by using Cscape. We will now use our Cscape software to establish communication. Last time we customized Cscape with icons to make it easier to find, communicate and control the unit. There are two different ways to communicate to the XL4 OCS controller, Ethernet and Serial. There … Read more