ACC Automation: PLC & Industrial Control Learning
Practical Tips and Techniques
A sensor sees a box. The PLC counter adds one. That is the whole job, and it is still the instruction that produces some of the most confusing bugs on a plant floor: PLC counters that run away, counts that will not clear after a power cycle, and an up/down count whose done bit means … Read more
Start, stop, overload. Almost every motor in a plant is controlled by those three signals, and almost every PLC programmer writes the rung that ties them together in their first week. This is the motor starter ladder logic. It is also where a surprising number of real faults come from: a stop button examined with … Read more
Almost every PLC program you will ever write has a timer in it. PLC timers will sound a horn before a motor starts. A fan keeps running after a heater shuts off. A pump counts its running hours until it is due for service. Those three jobs need three different timers: TON, TOF and RTO. … Read more
One week ago, the free PLC simulator at accautomation.ca had 17 ladder instructions. Today it has 42. Between October 13 and October 16, the ACC PLC Simulator shipped six releases, v1.123 through v1.128, in four days. You can now change a program while it is running, step a traffic intersection with one drum instruction, pick … Read more
I’ve been around PLCs for a long time now, and I’ve watched a lot of people take their first run at programming one. PLC programming challenges affect everyone. Some come from an electrical background, some from IT, some from the maintenance shop floor, and some are students who have never wired a pushbutton in their … Read more
The ACC PLC Simulator now supports simulator gamepad input. Plug in any standard USB or Bluetooth controller, and you can drive PLC inputs, control analog values, navigate 3D scene cameras, and run your program without ever touching the keyboard. This works with Xbox controllers, PlayStation controllers, generic USB HID gamepads, and most Bluetooth controllers. There … Read more
In this tutorial, I am going to walk you through the Conveyor Scene in the ACC PLC Simulator. This is a single-axis belt conveyor with proximity sensors at each end and a box that travels back and forth along the belt. You will write a ladder logic program that starts the conveyor, detects the box … Read more
Almost every PLC program includes a timer instruction. The Productivity Mini PLC P1-M622-16DR (P1 Mini) offers several timer instructions. (P1 Timer) We discussed the Timed Coil (TMC) and Flasher Coil (FLS) in our last post as part of our discussion of contacts and coils. In this session, we will review the instructions for the Simple … Read more
ACC Automation is growing — and part of that growth is bringing in voices from outside my own experience. I want to introduce you to Chris Urban, an automation educator and PLC trainer based near Montreal, Quebec, who has been teaching technicians and engineers for over 30 years. Chris reached out after finding the ACC PLC Simulator, and … Read more
The ACC PLC Simulator is a free, browser-based ladder-logic editor and PLC scan engine. There is nothing to download or install. You open it in Chrome, Edge, or Firefox and start programming immediately. I built this simulator so that anyone learning PLC programming can get hands-on practice without needing hardware. It uses standard PLC register … Read more