Could this be another possible controller. Certainly the programming
language will have a shorter learning curve.
C. Smith
Possibly but I'll bet it is not $90 :)
Paul Lamar
Hey I happen to be an old PLC programmer and controls engineer. It depends
on what you want to control if you can tell me. If not just give me
examples. The PLC was designed for electricians to use and trouble shoot
equipment with. It uses a hibrid program that mimics the ladder diagrams of
old that are an industry standard. You occassioinally see them in some
washing machines or appliances etc. They provide high speed universal
troubleshoot unlike written cryptic programming code like C or C+ CPP and so
on. Also the nice thing about what is refered to as Ladder logic is that it
can usually be changed on the fly in realtime without shutting down,
compiling and downloading. Depending on what your using it for, this can be
good. Also ladder logic is intuitive and once you understand it you
understand most PLC's and many DCS systems. You could essentially make
changes while flying to logic or just parameters, values, setpoints and so
on. I can help you if you decide to go this route and don't be shocked at
the price, some are very reasonable, some are big bucks. Allen Bradley
www.ab.com/ is a top of the line PLC that is very common in industry if you
want a high end reference.
Also do you want an input screen called a MMI or HMI. The MMI is the
Man-Machine Interface of old. Then women came into industry and they changed
the name to HMI, Human-machine interface. It is essentially a monitor with
on/off buttons and so on, touch screen type of thing that is programmable to
your specific operation.
Hell I can flood you with free info to fill your library if you want. I love
this stuff and can talk forever about state of the art controls.
This particular PLC is made by Galil Motor Controls - (there are millions
trying to get in the market)
http://www.galilmc.com/learning/tutorials.php
http://www.galilmc.com/support/catalog.php Order their free hardcopy
catalog here or get the ecat. I'm attaching one for you.
http://www.galilmc.com/
How many I/O's do you need and of what types. What type of operations do you
have going on? AI, AO, DI, DO and so on. I do process control and
automation, robotics etc if I can help you in any way. I haven't heard any
discussions about controls until I seen this post.
Nevada Bruce
We have up to ten zero to five volts analog signals to record and display
on a CRT. A minimum of ten bit resolution.
We have four injectors to control with pulse width modulation.
And we have one RPM to measure in real time and record and display.
We have four spark plugs to fire. Two of which can be fired with
the same signal.
All this must be done in 8 milliseconds.
Paul Lamar
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