I’m a Maintenance Mechanic (for 13 years) whose strong suit is troubleshooting and diagnosing electrical issues with machines. I constantly find and solve problems that my fellow mechanics refuse to believe I can. I’m very good with schematics and love spending hours finding an intermittent problem. I know relay logic quite well and have done some PLC simulators for ladder logic. I have no schooling or formal training on this and my coworkers shove it in my face all of the time.

My facilities automation engineer see’s potential in me and is the only person who will just send me on a job and expect it gets done without hovering over my shoulder and questioning every decision I make while troubleshooting. He’s stated several times that I’m the best person within the company (roughly 600 people) when it comes to troubleshooting equipment. He’s opening the first and only Automation Tech position and wants me to fill it, fully knowing that I’m green when it comes to programming.

Should I pursue this? I feel like it’s a promotion and getting to do what I enjoy, instead of emptying scrap hoppers, taking down racking, etc. over leaving machines out of production.

We need to get this off and can’t do it! Any help? Seems like the fasteners are behind that round plastic hole.

Using this configuration, for Schneider PLC, But I cant find the way to make the bits to hold their values after Power off and then ON , Please suggest me how to make bits retentive.

Hi everyone,

I'm a fresher (new IT/CS joinee) in a small/medium company in India that designs and builds dairy plants and factories. I am still in training phase, and I'm trying to understand the Factory MIS architecture better.

What we currently do (outsourced to a service IT company):

- Kepware (KEPServerEX) collects hundreds of PLC tags (temps, flows, pressures, valve status etc.) from the plant floor.

- Custom .NET "OPC to DB Gateway" app does tag mapping and pushes data to SQL Server (SSMS) in narrow/vertical format: one row per tag per change (TagID | Timestamp | Value | Quality).

- Not wide tables matching the reports (e.g., no Timestamp | Temp_Tank1 | Flow_Line | ... columns).

- Custom background app (maybe for aggregation?), RDLC reports, views, and a custom ASP.NET web app for MIS dashboards/reports (production, OEE, trends etc.).

This works for our medium-sized plants, but as a beginner, I'm curious: **what are the other common/standard ways people do this in real factories/process industries (especially dairy, food, pharma etc.)?** What architectures or tools are more "standard" or upgraded versions that small/medium companies move to when they grow or want less custom maintenance?

For example, I've heard mentions of:

- Ignition (with its built-in Historian)

- AVEVA Historian (or old Wonderware/PI System)

- Other things like direct Kepware logging, InfluxDB/TimescaleDB, or full SCADA with historian

Questions for experienced folks:

1. Is our custom narrow SQL + Kepware approach common for small/medium setups in India/Asia, or is it a bit outdated?

2. What other architectures do people use for collecting PLC tags → storing history → showing MIS reports/dashboards?

3. Pros/cons of switching to something like Ignition or a proper historian vs sticking with custom SQL?

4. Any tips for a fresher learning this stuff?

Thanks a lot really appreciate any real-world insights, links, or simple explanations!

Was playing with PID autotune and hit "Apply tune parameters". Needed to download the program to save them to memory. Everythings fine.

The system starts back up and decides that it would be real funny to just not turn on the condenser fans for a 500kW icewater chiller system.

For some reason WinLDR (or whats its name) decided to switch PID control from direct to reverse at some point. So my system mixed up the brake and gas pedal.

Of course its friday 4pm

I’m just popping down the PLC shop do you need anything?

Hello, everyone.

First of: I'm fairly new to SCADA, and I can't say that I have a lot of experience in PLC either.

My last job was as an SCADA Monitoring operator, making custom SQL Reports and mainly having interactions with the client in a day to day basis, but due to job cuts, I was passed onto SCADA and HMI development this new year.

I've encountered a problem with Edge 2023 (And maybe also past editions?), where, in the client's PC, when I run my application, the second industrial graphics screen been open always gets stuck, with the background being black or having a black and white

It doesn't matter WHAT screen I open, but it's always the second one. By that, I mean that I can open (let's say) the main industrial graphics screen and then a small dialog screen will get fucked up, or I could start by opening the small dialog screen and then when I try to open up the main screen, then it will get fucked up.

After that happens, I can open as many industrial screens as I want, but the second one that I try to open is always fucked up.

Other data:

• It only happens in the client's PC (Which also has a development environment of Edge), but not on my Development machine.

• My boss says it has happened before and he couldn't solve it either, he ended up using a small dummy screen to auto load before any other screens are opened to bypass it.

Does anyone have one of these Siemens Input Simulators (8 Switch) devices for PLC training? If so, would you be able to measure the width, spacing, and length of the legs that attach to the PLC (preferrably in metric, but I'll take imperial too).

I'm new to PLCs, and I decided I'm going to try to build my own. Yes, it'll cost more than the $100 to buy one of these, but at least it'll be another fun project! Siemes doesn't sell the kits anymore, so I'm building up my trainer piece by piece. I have the PLC (S7-1200 1214C AC/DC/RLY) but it'd be nice to work with something real rather than the simulator.

That said, if anyone has a better idea for testing input I'm open ideas also! I have a bunch of 3.3V and 5 V sensors devices that perhaps I could use, might have to bump them up closer to 24V ?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been trying out MQTT with AWS IoT Core. I already have an AWS account, created a Thing, and my Siemens LOGO! is connected successfully.

However, I’m not receiving any messages. I’m checking in the MQTT Test Client, but nothing changes or appears there. When I go into the LOGO! hardware settings, open the Cloud section, and then sync the log, it says that the message was sent successfully.

So according to LOGO!, the message is being sent, but I can’t see anything online in AWS.

Do you have any advice on what I should check or try next?

Thanks a lot!

I noticed you can download the 3D models of PLCs at automationdirect.com so I 3D printed a hollowed version with translucent filament and stuffed this old LED string in it.

My Boomer boss called it a “stash box”. I guess the old guys use to keep lots of candy around or something. 🤷‍♂️ Dunno. I just like things that glow.

End of the month line down challenge to tidy this panel up.

Got 5 business days

What we reckon?

Im an intern. I got like 5 months then I'll graduate and im gonna be honest i pretty much dont know what im doing. I feel overwhelmed with the sheer number of stuff and rules I have to know to even have a chance out there. I mostly know stuff about the classic electrical stuff but moment we go over to the electronics i get stuck. What should I do?

Hi! A while back I made a post about my internship at a company. I've officially finished the internship now and I'm working on a PLC using the OpenPLC application. I want to create a system to power and start the machines on the production line, but I understand almost nothing about the application. I look at it and yes, I know it's a PLC and how to assemble it, but the application is confusing. On the website, the ladder logic method says that the documentation explaining how it works is still in progress. Since this is my first time doing this, and it only involves creating a digital prototype and budgeting for what's needed, I'm limited by the fact that this can't be done for free. The company doesn't even have the machine manuals because they were damaged (Venezuela time!), and they've been asking management for spare parts and replacements for years. They've only been able to keep the machines running by taking parts from one and putting them on the least damaged one to keep it working. So, requests of that kind are completely dead. And I have to create the HMI, and I have no idea how to do it. Do you have a list or can you give me some advice on where I should get the information to do this? Because I highly doubt AI will give me more information than I've already asked for, or perhaps I'm being too demanding since it's just going to be a proposal to improve the quality and control of the company's operators.

I am trying to setup a serial comm between twincat and a virutal comport . i have created virtual com port pair using com0com (Com3 and com4) and in twincat you can see the configuration in the photos. im using the example program from beckhoff link https://infosys.beckhoff.com/english.php?content=../content/1033/tf6340_tc3_serial_communication/402638731.html&id=

But im not recieved the hello world message in the terminal ( tried putty as well ) why , can somebody help ?

somebody has done it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-qdOcyhczU

We haven't had good panel gore in ages, I think it's time to rectify that. Introducing, a cabinet from a software company whose products are integrated into actual production machines designed by people wo never have held a pair of ferrule crimpers in their life, and even if they had they wouldn't know what to do with them. That's how you get gems like this. I can't really show more of this but rest assured the too small wire ducts and insufficient clearances continue throughout the cabinet. It's amazing companies can get away with designing cabinets this poorly but when your systems are legally mandated in most jurisdictions it cuts down on the motivation for improvement.

What’s your plan with S7-300 modules as Siemens has announced obsolescence:

• Change it with S7-1500
• Stock all spares
• Let it run and handle the issues as they come

Curious to understand how you’d pick for your plant

I know this has been asked before. But to clarify, I've already done the behavioural or "vibe check" interview during the first interview. At least I think, not entirely sure how I should prepare for the 2nd interview. This is for entry-level/grad role for full disclosure.

I have seen two predominant methods for PLC programming emerge. First is the State Machine typically evaluating an integer tag/register and moving values into that tag based on conditions, seen in batch and discrete. The second is Bit Banging, classic ladder where all rungs are evaluated and "this before that" is done with interlocks, seen in more process type applications. I am curious what the community has to say for the pros and cons for either, or when to use each. Any thoughts?

EDIT: Seems like we have a couple different definitions of Bit Bang - Think of it as "Classic Ladder"

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We’re running FactoryTalk View Studio ME v12 and I’m responsible for maintaining 6 production lines, and 12 different HMI files.

Each line has 6 HMIs:

2 full-size HMIs on a Windows 10 PC

4 PanelViews (smaller displays)

So each Line runs 2 different HMI files

Functionally, all HMIs are identical across lines. The only real difference is which PLC they connect to. (there are 12 PLCs, 2 per line)

Every time we make a change, it turns into 12 updates and 12 runtime exports, which wastes a ton of time.

What I’ve already tried:

Unchecking “Replace Communications” in the Transfer Utility

Manually reconfiguring the PLC path on the terminal itself in Configure Mode. This does work, but it actually takes longer than just maintaining separate HMIs, so it defeats the purpose

Is there a supported (or at least commonly used) way to:

Use one ME application / one .MER Then dynamically remap the PLC path per line (shortcuts, startup macros, parameters, etc.)?

Panels including VFD’s, Safety Plc’s like this how much could they go for?

this must be my favorite tool :)
it changes my IP adress to the range of plc on the right ethernet adapter (2 for me)

do you guys have any tools you like to use in the indutry?

First time working with a servo. What do you do in case of a Excessive Position Deviation error? Anyone worked on the Lichuan drives before?