AutomationDirect’s BRX PLC was announced as a Finalist in the Automation & Controls category for Plant Engineering’s 2017 Product of the Year. You can check out the new BRX PLC here. Winners will be announced on April 2, 2018.
VFDs, RS485, PLCs — these terms may seem like names of droids or faraway galaxies and planets in a “Star Wars” movie. However, they really refer to earthly based components that Vermont Technical College engineering student Dan Rapoza learned about when he set out to help a dairy farmer save time and money by automating…
To control pneumatic cylinders and actuators with fluid power, air flow must be reliably controlled, typically with a solenoid valve. Pat Phillips, Product Manager, Fluid Power & Mechanical Products at AutomationDirect, wrote an article titled There’s a Valve for That, which ran in the November-December 2017 issue of IEN magazine. In the article, he discussed…
The world of single-board computers and microcontrollers offers interesting and inexpensive opportunities for automation applications, but can these components be trusted in critical production applications? The assortment of microcontrollers emerging in the “maker” world has been growing rapidly, with no signs of abating. These devices—including Arduino, BeagleBone, Raspberry Pi and others—offer extraordinary capabilities, along with…
In the world of garage or basement automation and robot builders, numerous low-cost microcontrollers and related software are used for real-time control. Arduino and Raspberry Pi are perhaps two of the most popular out of dozens of options (Figure 1). These open-source controllers are available from several suppliers, but using them in a real-time industrial…
Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are available in a variety of sizes for applications big and small. While the application’s hardware requirements often drive the PLC selection, the programming software’s capabilities should also be considered as it has a significant effect on program development.
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PLCs Improve Controls of Radio Broadcasts
Broadcasting is a high tech industry and much of it is cutting edge, such as Ethernet-based audio over IP. Our industry employs the latest technology in many areas, such as the use of coding algorithms for bit rate reduction and remote broadcasting. But when it comes to controlling the radio signals sent out by the…
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Copley High School's Automation Success
The Innovator team at Copley High School in Akron, Ohio needed to design a piece of equipment to snap caps together for Weaver Industries ProPak, a company that has been employing people with disabilities for about 40 years. With the existing assembly method, Weaver was struggling to meet production and contract requirements for component assembly.
CLICK Series stackable micro brick PLCs are now available from AutomationDirect with both Ethernet communications capabilities and analog I/O built-in. 12 new units provide both discrete and analog I/O including four discrete inputs, four discrete outputs, two or four analog inputs and two analog outputs.
The new Productivity1000 stackable micro PLC is the super compact yet highly capable member of AutomationDirect’s Productivity controller family. The P1000 is packed with many of the features of the Productivity series but housed in a smaller, slimmer design to provide space, budget and time savings.