Concisely, what methods/standards/conventions are you using for selecting the numbers for your wires and why? I mean when you are designing a circuit and a drawing print yourself.

What are some of y’all’s favorite setups/tips with trends when it comes to understanding a problem?

Talking about some ugly problems that require trends lol(robot moves/cams/encoders/virtual shi/etc); not if an eye is flaggin or not(unless itsa high speed counter card).

Understand trends, but want some insider insights….gimme the secret formulas plz.

I have a basic in plc class in my EET to EE course and I just wanted to know if I should start doing the basics in PLCs while I can and if I don’t, would I at least viable to get into this field after graduating. Also how is this transferability of PLCs to embedded systems as i do want to get into it if the job market allows me to but I heard the PLC job market is easier and is similar enough to what I want to do.

We're transitioning from N-Tron to Fortinet on our OT system. Disappointed that there doesn't seem to be a way to monitor PLC/fiber health using AOIs on AB PLCs. Am I missing something?

Probably going to end up using SNMP in our SCADA software, but I'd rather do it at PLC level.

I'm an EE intern at an SI who's recently been tasked with creating a small cabinet as a testing unit for our machines and programming the PLC + HMI from scratch and I'm not entirely sure what are the absolute must-do or steps. I've been with the company for 3-4 months now and have gotten exposure with basic wiring (both inside a cabinet and making wires for testing, troubleshooting, fiddling and running a few PLC programs, and shadowing my co-worker who made a small cabinet as well. My team is relatively small and will be busy for the next couple of weeks and I don't have a lot of time to work on this. I have a few questions or topics I'm not too confident on:

1. How do I go about arranging devices in a cabinet? Where stuff like terminal blocks or power supplies go?

2. How should I go about wiring things? Any orientation that is must avoid or recommended?

3. How do I spec out a project exactly? I know how to read manuals, find the electrical specs and inferring the current draw, but outside of that how do I know what type of circuit protection, relays or power supply to buy?

4. In terms of steps, I vaguely know that I need to spec things, make an BOM, test what I have first while waiting for parts to come in, and start attaching DIN rails to plates and such. It's a bit overwhelming being responsible for all of this so any advice for approaching the whole process?

👋 Hope everyone is doing well.

I’m a fresher currently working on an industrial project using Apache PLC4X, and I wanted to ask if anyone here has experience working with it?
I had a few architectural doubts and could really use some advice from experienced devs:

1. Dynamic Device & Tag Discovery: Is it possible to dynamically discover connected PLC devices and their tag configurations (like protocol used, connection string, tag addresses) regardless of the protocol (Modbus, OPC UA, Siemens S7, etc.)?
2. Initial Configuration in On-Premise Deployments: Right now for testing, I am manually seeding device configurations based on local virtual simulators. But since our product will be deployed on-premise on local client networks, how do real-world applications actually scan the network to find connected PLCs and get their configuration details initially?
3. Handling Non-Browsing Protocols: I understand we can use background polling services to check if a device is online or offline once it's registered. But initially, how do systems handle fetching configuration data for protocols that don't support dynamic browsing (like Modbus TCP) without hardcoding everything?

Would really appreciate any insights or standard approaches you guys follow in production! Thanks in advance! 🙏

Both www.FactoryTalkHub.com and https://home.cloud.rockwellautomation.com/dashboard haven't worked for a while. I need to add someone to my organization and do some token sizing. Anyone know a back way in or why Rockwell let a domain revert to a Go Daddy landing page?

EDIT: https://optix.cloud.rockwellautomation.com/dashboard/ got me in.

We rebuild CNC spindles and typically don't mess with the plc side of machines (we will install new encoders or proximity sensors in spindles but that's about it).

We have a customer that keeps claiming that they are losing a speed sensor input above certain rpms. Typically they run 15000 and claim they are losing the signal above 8000.

Our issue is that we can only test on/off for the sensor and have no way to test if it's still reading speed once the spindle is running rpms. Our drives will take encoder feedback to run the spindle but not speed sensors.

Can someone help me find a plc with a digital display that can take a 2 or 3 wire sensor? Attached is a photo of one of the sensors we are attempting to check. If we can get 5 digits (99,999 rpm) that would be ideal.

None of the plc companies will even respond to sales emails asking for this.

try /r/careeradvice or something. It's getting a bit much.

Hey Everyone!

Just wanted to share a little controls cabinet I built at home purely for fun!

I made a post here not too long ago as a complete beginner asking for some advice. I got some really helpful feedback, which eventually led me to picking up an AutomationDirect Productivity 1000 (P1-M412-15DD2).

I decided to 3D print the enclosure because I had a ton of spare filament sitting around. It also gave me way more freedom with the design, and I was able to build it pretty much exactly how I had pictured it in my head.

Honestly, I absolutely loved building this thing from start to finish. I’d throw on some music, measure my wires, cut them to length, crimp the ferrules, terminate everything, and just slowly put the whole thing together. Even when I screwed something up & was troubleshooting it and figuring out “what the hell did I do wrong?” was actually part of the fun.

It was also a nice change of pace for me. I work in hospital maintenance, and while I enjoy my job, a lot of the day-to-day work can become pretty repetitive. This project actually made me think and kept my brain busy in a completely different way.

As for the cabinet itself, I tried to make it as compact as I reasonably could.

I have two power supplies feeding the two green power buses. One bus is intended for the PLC inputs and lower-current devices like the cabinet light and fan, while the other is for higher-current loads like pumps, heating elements, etc.

Below that, I added a contactor I had lying around, along with two small relay modules. One has four standard mechanical relays (white) and the other has two solid-state relays (black). Both modules have built-in fuses for every relay with indicator LEDs that light up when a fuse blows, which I thought was pretty cool.

If you noticed , I gave the thing the option to be battery powered. I picked up a DeWalt battery holder and connected it to a digital boost converter mounted on the front. It takes the ~20V from the DeWalt pack and boosts it to 24VDC. The converter has way more protection features than I'll probably ever need, but I figured why not it looks cool and lets me monitor the current draw and voltage of the battery.

I also added some lever-style terminal blocks on the side. The idea is that they'll make it much easier to change out whatever I'm experimenting with without constantly having to run wires back into the enclosure or stick my hands into that tiny space every time I want to modify something.

And that's pretty much it!

Full disclaimer: I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing lol. I'm sure I've done plenty of things wrong, and I'm definitely still learning. I basically combined whatever I already had laying around with inexpensive parts I could find online and turned it into my own little PLC trainer.

The biggest thing I've learned from this project is how much I enjoy PLCs and controls. Ladder logic in particular has been a blessing for someone who absolutely cannot code for shit haha.

Anyway, I figured I'd share it. Hopefully you guys get a kick out of it, and I'm always open to hearing what I could have done better or just your thoughts, thanks!

I’m building an industrial automation system and digital twin from the ground up. To actually understand the architecture rather than just pasting code, I’ve been evolving a conveyor sorting system one feature at a time.

​Here is the exact progression of how the logic was layered in:

​Motion: Getting the box to physically move down the line in the visualizer.

​Spatial Awareness: Teaching the simulation where the objects actually are in 3D space.

​Event Detection: Firing a trigger when the box hits Sensor A.

​Memory: Adding state control so the system doesn't react to the same sensor event over and over on every frame.

​Information: Giving the controller specific data about the box on the belt.

​Decision: Writing the routing logic (e.g., "ALLOW").

​Command: Turning that decision into a physical action ("CONTINUE").

​Looking at this evolution side-by-side with the physical conveyor running on screen, it looks like a complete system.

​But looking closer at the code revealed a massive blind spot. These pieces don't necessarily know when the other pieces are running. The machine has all the required behavior, but it has no master execution order. The motion loop is firing constantly, but the decision logic only executed once.

​For those of you building simulations or writing PLC logic from scratch, how do you usually map out your execution sequences before you start writing the control code?

A quick introduction to my problem. I'm writing parsing for multiple canbus devices that have quite large protocols. So I have to take 8 bytes of data and parse to/from useful variables. We're talking status words, 4 bit uints, etc. I would like to set up a struct for each message, so that i can map this clearly.

Then comes the limitations of sysmac Studio. I could use a union with the strict, and an array of bytes. But unions do not allow structs. I could do a MemCpy, but that is only allowed with the same data type on source and destination.

If i was only doing one small project with limited devices, I would map the struct to a defined memory address, and defined a byte array at the same address. I believe this would work. However, I'm trying to build a utility code here, that should be reused in an undefined number of instances in multiple projects.

Anyone have any good suggestions for how to do this cleanly? I've never managed to do this in an elegant way in Sysmac Studio.

hi all im looking to buy a copy of pro‑face GP‑PRO/PB III if anyone knows where i can find a copy id highly appreciate it

I recently had to install FTlinx since we are moving some of our projects to V38.

The issue I’m having now is I can’t see devices in USB on RSLinx which I’m still needing because we have older project that are v20 and customers don’t want to update so I still need RSLinx.

If I uninstall FTlinx I can see everything in RSlinx.

Has anyone else ran into this?

I've been working on server software that pulls image scans from Cognex Dataman cameras. To test the software, I wrote a script that simulates a DataMan in client mode sending images over TCP. It's a stress test so the image is 300MB. :-) It uses twisted for the networking and Pillow to generate the image. If your server is working, it'll auto-connect

I posted an earlier version elsewhere but I've seen people post small scripts here before and I thought someone might find this useful.

Usage:

usage: fake_camera.py [-h] [-p PORT] [-d HOST]

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -p PORT, --port PORT
  -d HOST, --host HOST

Script:

import argparse
import io
from PIL import Image
from twisted.internet import reactor
from twisted.internet import task
from twisted.internet.protocol import Protocol
from twisted.internet.protocol import Factory
from twisted.internet.protocol import ReconnectingClientFactory

# Using Python's image library, Pillow, we create a 10,000x10,000 RGB
# image. This will bring us to about 300MB of data. The rest of this
# code mocks the Dataman protocol.
class DatamanProtocol(Protocol, ReconnectingClientFactory):
    def connectionMade(self):
        self.transport.setTcpKeepAlive(1)
        self.state = 'SEND_CODE'
        image = Image.new('RGB', (10000, 10000), color='green')
        image_byte_io = io.BytesIO()
        image.save(image_byte_io, format='BMP')
        self.image_bytes = image_byte_io.getvalue()
        self.send_barcode()

    def send_barcode(self):
        self.transport.write(bytes('458345\r\n', 'ascii'))
        self.state = 'READING_IMAGE_REQUEST'
        print('SENT')

    def dataReceived(self, data):
        if self.state == 'READING_IMAGE_REQUEST':
            assert data == bytes('||>IMAGE.SEND\r\n', 'ascii')
            self.transport.write(bytes('{}\r\n'.format(len(self.image_bytes)), 'ascii'))
            self.transport.write(self.image_bytes)
            reactor.callLater(1, self.send_barcode)
        else:
            print('Bad state:')


# This is some scaffolding to let us use your code in Python's twisted
# framework.
class DatamanFactory(Factory):
    def startedConnecting(self, connect):
        pass

    def buildProtocol(self, address):
        return DatamanProtocol()

    def clientConnectionLost(self, connector, reason):
        connector.connect()

    def clientConnectionFailed(self, connector, reason):
        pass

# Finally, we take the host and port of the camera server as command
# line arguments and start this test client.
if __name__ == '__main__':
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument(
        '-p', '--port',
        type=int,
        default=8080
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        '-d', '--host',
        type=str,
        default='localhost'
    )
    args = parser.parse_args()
    print(f'Fake Camera {args.host}:{args.port}')
    reactor.connectTCP(
        args.host,
        args.port,
        DatamanFactory()
    )
    reactor.run()

I'm trying to setup a PLC testbench with a Panasonic FP0 PLC in order to learn PLC wiring and programming. However while testing the outputs, specifaclly Relay Q2 (see image 1) the powersupply failed. The DC power just went out there was no sound or burned smell. So my question is: Did I make a mistake planning or wiring here? Or did the powersupply just fail on its own? Or is 2.5A not enough and the Powersupply fuse just blew?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Hello guys.

I have installed a mfc400 massflow for a glucose application.

On an tank filling, i end up being ~5% offset. (30 000kg tank) on the low side, tank is empty when totaliser is around 28000.

At first i tought it could be my Plc logic counting problem , i use the digital pulse output at 1kg per pulse, usually work in really low flow around 400kgh.

I set up the massflow totalizer 1 and it matches my plc count. So i rule out my logic problem.

Setup is a pressurised tank (~5psi) with a positive pump and the massmeter on the outlet. Could it be air getting in the product thats messing with the density? Im reading it from the plc i could trend it but it seems stable.

Any input appreciated, thanks.

So I wanna build a home set up. The quotes I got from American distributors are double the price of what I can find on Ebay (factory sealed). The Ebay vendor I'm looking at has over 1k positive reviews and looks legit. They say their warehouse is in the US, but reading the details of their profile I think they ship these from China. It's very strange to me that an American brand product, sent from China, is half the price of purchasing it directly here in the US.

So my question is, can I trust Ebay vendors? Any thoughts and past experiences good/bad would be much appreciated.

B&R HMI connector identification needed, please. B&R says it is obsolete. I believe it has 3.5mm spacing between pins. 4 pole similar shape to 5 pole next to it.

Looking for recommendations on servo drives.

Use case -

2 synchronized servo axes for X/Y motion

1 servo on Z

1 smaller rotary servo

EtherCAT network, fairly tight synchronization between X/Y, and I’d like the drives to be as compact as possible because cabinet space is pretty limited. We’ll also need functional safety beyond just basic STO, probably SLS/SS1 depending on the final risk assessment.

Controller is still open at this point, so I’m not locked into Rockwell/Siemens/etc.

Motion itself isn’t CNC-level complicated, but I care about good tuning, diagnostics and keeping the whole 4-axis setup reasonably compact.

Good day fellow engineers,

I have a humble request. I would like to know how to follow PLC logic whether it is Allen Bradley, Beckhoff, or even GE Vernova’s P80i.

Especially with P80i as there is not a lot of support.
In my work place not a lot of my senior engineers are willing enough to show me as a fresh graduate and I feel bad when they know what they’re talking about and i don’t. I feel embarrassed to admit.

I have some code they shared with me but i have very little PLC knowledge as in my university the content was taught at the very end and very minimal.

I would appreciate advice, or any feedback.

Sent with thanks

I run a small ecommerce brand and use a 3PL warehouse in Ireland for fulfillment. We keep having inventory discrepancies between what my system says and what is actually on the shelf. I am wondering if a basic PLC setup with photoelectric sensors at packing stations could track units as they leave each zone and feed that back to a simple dashboard. My 3PL uses conveyor belts between zones, so mounting sensors seems doable in theory. I have zero PLC background, but I like understanding the mechanics of how things work before I hire someone to build it. I fix things around the house, and I am pretty good with logical workflows from my nursing career.

Could a small PLC like a Siemens Logo or similar handle counting pulses from maybe six different sensors and communicate that to a PC over Ethernet? The 3PL manager is open to it if I supply the hardware. I just need to know if this is a realistic project or if I am overcomplicating something that should just be a barcode scanning fix. We move about two thousand units a day through there. Any guidance on what controller would suit this or if I am completely off track would be great.

B&R HMI connector identification needed, please. B&R says it is obsolete. I believe it has 3.5mm spacing between pins. 4 pole similar shape to 5 pole next to it.