AutomationDirect’s CLICK PLUS PLC, starting at just $89, is the next generation platform for basic control applications, building on reliable and familiar functionality, while adding advanced options like Wi-Fi and data logging. AutomationDirect’s CLICK PLUS PLC was announced as a Plant Engineering 2021 Product of the Year Finalist in the “Controls Systems” category. Check out…
What is Needed for Industrial Control Panels? Industrial control panels are fundamental for protecting electrical, instrumentation, and control devices. The AutomationDirect portfolio of enclosures and components can help users obtain everything they need to create control panel solutions. Industrial control panels are commonly used for distributing power, housing pneumatics, and protecting automation electronics associated with…
Mother Nature has provided a lot of extreme weather recently. One of her most powerful and fearsome forces is lightning. Do you know which of the following statements about lightning are true and which are false? Lightning strikes the United States about 25 million times a year. Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. When…
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Student Brings Joy to Kids During COVID-19 with Automated Halloween Display
In a typical year, children excitedly count down the days in October to Halloween. However, Halloween 2020 was different due to COVID-19, and many kids felt it was going to be a disappointing nightmare. That wasn’t the case in one town in Utah, thanks to the efforts of Shaun Oaks, father of two young children…
Intelligent routers and associated cloud services make it easy for end users and OEMs to use an IIoT approach for accessing and acting on operational data. Bill Dehner, technical marketing engineer for AutomationDirect, wrote an article for the September 2021 issue of Plant Engineering titled Exploit IIoT to Improve Operations. Here’s a summary, click on…
Satisfy customers. Produce high quality, reliable switches. Continuously improve and align. Seventy-five years ago, Gustav Merz put these key values in place when he began manufacturing electrical switches in Gaildorf, Germany, in a building on his own property. These critical cornerstones formed the foundation of success that has propelled his company – MERZ Switchgear –…
An innovator found a way to upcycle bottle caps into extraordinary products, an activity that also helps support local children’s charities. By applying practical AutomationDirect devices and components, he has efficiently scaled up production. When Nathan Rues started a hobby of collecting bottle caps while in college, little did he know that one day this…
Periodically, the AutomationDirect team reaches out to industry users in a variety of ways to gauge their interest on a variety of topics. For instance, in June 2016 we looked into whether users were “data-driven”. One of the questions in that survey addressed whether data was being accessed remotely via a web browser/client or mobile…
Zig or Zag The factory manager wants to know how many routes there are for the AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) in the lower left corner to get to the charging station in the upper right (see the diagram below). The AGV must always travel along the lines shown such that it gets closer to the…
Whether pumps are automated with hardwired controls or PLCs, designers can provide enhanced functional and protective features using control and monitoring relays. Lenny Filipkowski, Product Manager at AutomationDirect, wrote an article for the August 2021 edition of Process Instrumentation magazine titled Exploring Options for Process Pump Automation. Pump control is a common application used in…