ACC Automation: PLC & Industrial Control Learning
Practical Tips and Techniques
There are four fundamental variable types in PLC programming: Boolean, Integer, Real, and String. This is a universal concept for all PLC programming but needs to be clarified due to the acronyms and various names used by manufacturers and PLC hardware. Your controller programming manual will help you understand the terms of the variables in … Read more
The Click PLC has automatic linear scaling for the analog inputs and outputs. What if the analog input or output is not linear? How do you handle this in the PLC? Look at the following tank. We can measure the height, which is linear, but the volume will not because of the shape of the … Read more
All programmable logic controllers (PLC) have the same numbering system at their core. This is the same with all computers as well. The status of any memory location can be either on or off. A one (1) will represent an on or “True” status and zero (0) will represent an off or “False” status. This … Read more
An LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) is a great way to display information in our Arduino Uno controller. We will be wiring and programming an alphanumeric, two rows with 16 characters on each row. The display has an LED (Light Emitting Diode) backlight with adjustable contrast. This white and blue LCD will display “Hello World!” on … Read more
The DHT11 is a digital temperature and humidity sensor. It uses a capacitive humidity sensor and a thermistor to measure the surrounding air and sends out a digital signal on the data pin (no analog input pins needed). Its simple to use, and the update timing of the sensor is about 2 seconds. Thermistor temperature … Read more
We will now be looking at how to use analog inputs to our Arduino UNO controller. An analog input converts a voltage level into a digital value. This can then be used in our Arduino program or sketch. The analog input signal can represent many different items. Speed, levels, distance, brightness, density, humidity, etc. are … Read more
We will now be looking at using digital inputs (pushbuttons) to turn LEDs on and off. This will be programmed using our Arduino Uno R3 from our Super Starter Kit. Pushbuttons will allow actions to be performed that our Arduino program sketch will interpret and take action. We will be wiring two pushbutton switches. A … Read more
We will now be looking at LEDs that we can wire and program using our Arduino Uno super starter kit. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are semiconductor devices that will show light when current passes through them. This light is produced within the solid semiconductor material so it can be called a solid-state lighting device. We will … Read more
The P1AM-GPIO is an industrial rated shield for the P1AM-100 Arduino system. It provides a connection from most of the P1AM-100 GPIO pins to the front 18 position terminal block connector. We will be looking at the wiring and programming of this input and output industrial rated shield that mounts on the left side of … Read more
Shift registers will move (shift) bits in a word (register) to the left or right. If we look at an example of boxes moving along a conveyor belt, the boxes would represent the bits in the register. The movement of the conveyor would be the shifting of the register that represents the movement of the … Read more