ACC Automation: PLC & Industrial Control Learning
Practical Tips and Techniques
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
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
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 electromechanical drum sequencer. The Click PLC has a drum in the instruction set. We will discuss the drum instruction and look at an … Read more
We will look at a PLC programming example of delaying the start of 7 motors. Each motor will be on a switch that the operator can select at any time. The motor outputs should have a 5-second delay between the outputs coming on. This question originally came from PLCTalk.net. An original solution to the problem … Read more
Continuing our series, we will now look at timers and counters and how they are used in the Click PLC. Previously we have discussed: System Hardware – Video Installing the Software – Video Establish Communication – Video Numbering System and Addressing – Video The programming software and manuals can be downloaded from the Automation Direct website … Read more
So far in this series, we have discussed the Click PLC System Hardware (Video) and Installed the Software (Video). Today we will be establishing PC to PLC communications. This will allow us to program, edit or alter the way in which our Click PLC will function.