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.

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

Horner XL4 System Hardware – All In One

The Horner XL4 OCS is an All-in-one controller. This means that this modern unit combines a logic controller, operator interface, I/O and networking all into one package. This OCS (Operator Control Station) family was first released in 1998. New features to the line-up have been added over the years. Today the OCS family has a … Read more

Click PLC Send and Receive Instructions

Receive and Send instructions will allow you to send and receive serial data to an external device. The communication method that you setup can be ASCII or Modbus. ASCII (American Standard Communication for Information Interchange) can be used to send to devices such as a printer. Receiving ASCII can be used for connecting barcode scanners … Read more