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Category: Software & Programming

Software and programming issues

Guest Posts, HMIs, Software & Programming

MRO – Moving HMI Designs

Frank May 7, 2018 Tagged with design, guest posts, HMI, programming, vendors

Today’s post is a guest post on HMI programming from MRO Electric, an automation product supplier. Designing HMIs for Mobile Devices Well-designed human-machine interfaces (HMI) reduce operator error, saving companies millions of dollars by reducing down-time and increasing worker safety. …

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Material Handling, My Little Factory, Process, Software & Programming, Trainers, vision

Hands On Training Equipment

Frank Apr 8, 2018 Tagged with Allen-Bradley, Fischertechnik, machine vision, My Little Factory, PLC Trainers, Siemens, training

This post is both an update on the status of “My Little Factory” and an article on some new fun trainers that I am working on. As you can see in the above picture, all of the hardware for the …

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PLCs, Software & Programming

Ladder Logic 403: Message Scrolling and Multiple Faults

Frank Mar 11, 2018 Tagged with Allen-Bradley, HMI, ladder logic, PLCs, programming, Siemens, training

Today’s post is in answer to a question from Bruno on my last post on Faults and Messages. Bruno asks “If two faults happen at the same time, will this procedure work?” This is a more complex question than it …

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HMIs, PLCs, Software & Programming

Ladder Logic 209: Faults and Messages

Frank Feb 14, 2018 Tagged with fault messages, HMI, ladder logic, message displays, PLCs, programming

This post is another in my series on Ladder Logic. As with the other posts in this series, I am using generic logic and addressing so that it can apply to various PLCs. In previous posts in this series I …

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PLCs, Software & Programming

Ladder Logic 208: System Routine 2

Frank Aug 13, 2017 Tagged with Auto Cycle, ladder logic, PLC Pulse Train, PLCs, programming

Today’s post is a continuation of the series on PLC Ladder Logic I started several years ago; for more of these post click on the PLC tab at the top of the site. In particular this continues my discussion of …

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PLCs, Software & Programming, The Book

Ladder Logic 305: ASCII and Strings

Frank Feb 9, 2017 Tagged with Allen-Bradley, ASCII, PLC Hardware and Programming, PLCs, programming, Strings

Today’s post covers ASCII, string manipulation and how to deal with readable text in a PLC. The picture above is from a ControlLogix program (Allen-Bradley, RSLogix5000 v.16) I wrote back in 2006. The program communicated with a PC-based Cognex machine …

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Software & Programming, Training

Automation Simulation

Frank Dec 4, 2016 Tagged with education, Famic Automation Studio, PLC simulators, training

In my quest to produce online training classes I have been investigating some of the different types of industrial automation and PLC simulators available. My intent here is to find two different things: 1. A PLC programming simulator that is …

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PLCs, Software & Programming

Advantages of Re-Usable Code

Frank Nov 21, 2016 Tagged with AOI, IEC 61131-3, PLC Data Types, Reusable PLC Code, UDDT, UDT

Recently I’ve seen some good discussions on PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) vs. PACs (Programmable Automation Controllers), and it got me thinking about what really differentiates the two. Some have said that it is having a more powerful processor, or more …

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Guest Posts, Software & Programming

PLCopen

Frank Oct 2, 2016 Tagged with CodeSys, IEC 61131-3, Itris Automation, PLC Standards, PLCopen, PLCs

Industrial automation has changed drastically over the past century. From the Charlie Chaplin style factories, where companies were reliant on people to manage the factory floor, to today, where factories are highly automated with only a few people present on …

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Controls Design, Documentation, Software & Programming

Tag Structures and Dotfields

Frank Sep 11, 2016 Tagged with Allen-Bradley, AOI, dotfields, programming, Symbols, tag structure, Tags, UDT

Today’s post is in response to an e-mail I received asking for my thoughts on Tag Structure. In part, George Steel wrote: Great site, thanks for all your efforts. I am working on positioning my org to move from RS500 …

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