Super Vision!
As some of you may know, especially those of you who have known me since the 1990’s, machine vision used to be a major part of my career. I could conservatively say I was part of at least 40-50 vision …
Author: Frank
Electrical Engineer and business owner from the Nashville, Tennessee area. I also play music, Chess and Go.
Unitronics
Today’s post, as promised last week, is written by Ryan McCarthy, a reader of this blog. While I always offer to place a reciprocal link to the website of whoever contributes guest posts to this site, amazingly Ryan is neither …
Automation Consulting, LLC Open House
When I started this blog back at the end of 2010 I really just did it for fun. At that time I wanted to make sure it contained useful information and was non-commercial in nature. Then I went back into …
Fabricate – Panel Preparation
Today’s topic is on exactly what happens before you start wiring a control panel. It will also serve as an update on my progress on “My Little Factory”, which has drawn a lot of questions from my readers. As I …
My Little Factory – Innovate
The week before last I talked about how I make some of the mechanical things for My Little Factory. A quick update on that: I have managed to make some progress on fabricating the escapements for the indexing conveyor, but …
My Little Factory – Fabricate
A couple of weeks ago I started a series called “My Little Factory”, describing a system I am building for training purposes. I plan on updating the progress on this project monthly, but today’s topic is also related. As those …
Sensors 102: Signal Conditioning
Today’s post is about what goes on between an actual detection device and the input of a control system. In many control applications you don’t need to think about what goes on inside of a device. The signal is converted …
My Little Factory – April 2017
This post is the first in a series I am writing about a project I am working on, hence the “April 2017” designation. As most of my regular readers know, I have spent much of the past several years teaching …
Automate/Promat 2017
Earlier this week I had the privilege of attending my second Automate and Promat show in Chicago. I wrote an earlier post on the Automate 2015 show, but when I went back and re-read it I realized that I actually …
Birth of the Programmable Controller
Today’s post is extracted from my new “generic” PLC course manual, PLC Hardware and Programming – Multi-Platform. In the manual, I also cover the origins of the computer, beginning with the Babbage Analytical Engine, all the way back in 1823! …