New PLCs gain capabilities to connect industrial-sourced OT data with higher-level IT and cloud-based systems. Damon Purvis, PLC Product Manager at AutomationDirect, wrote a cover story article for the January 2021 issue of Control Engineering. The article is titled PLCs Power Industrial Data Integration and it looks at the many ways PLCs have gained enterprise…
We need your vote! No, we are not referring to the upcoming US election but rather Control Engineering magazine’s 2021 Engineers’ Choice Awards. We are excited to announce that our P1AM-100 ProductivityOpen Arduino-compatible Controller has been selected as a Finalist for these prestigious awards in the Machine & Embedded Control – PLCs category. Winners will…
Our Productivity2000 and Productivity3000 PLCs have been used successfully over the years in many industries, even those that constantly evolve with new standards, techniques, and acceptable practices. One specific industry is the marine or maritime industry which includes yacht construction among other areas. To build a quality-certified vessel, a yacht builder can choose to apply…
AutomationDirect products and services enabled an industrial calibration provider to deliver more services to help their clients save time and money. Industrial calibration firm Gulf State Instruments (GSI) has a 20-year track record of helping their customers optimize operations. In this success story published in the July edition of Control magazine, titled Gulf States Instruments…
Deciding between a PLC or Industrialized Open Source Controller can be difficult. These two control platforms are often compared against one another in the battle for which is better. Saying that one platform is better than the other is impractical. Both platforms have advantages and disadvantages dependent on the environments that they will be used…
How industrial automation plays a leading role in show-biz scenery. In February 2020, Control Design posted a website article by Ryan Poethke of Showman Fabricators, titled Motor Control When Hanging From The Ceiling. Here’s a summary, click on the link above for the full text. Industrial automation can play a role in many situations beyond…
Many VFDs now have on-board logic programming and I/O, enabling them to perform real-time control for localized applications. Jeff Payne, Product Manager for the Drives & Motors Group at AutomationDirect, wrote an article for the April 2020 issue of Design News titled The Logic of Balancing VFDs and PLCs. Here’s a summary, click on the…
Maker hardware and software is now available in industrially-hardened form factors, adding the reliability required for critical applications. Bill Dehner, technical marketing engineer for AutomationDirect, wrote an article for the May 2020 issue of Control Engineering titled Open-Source Benefits for Industrial Controllers. Here’s a summary, click on the link above for the full text. Industrial…
Single-board consumer microcontrollers are popular with hobbyists, but how do they stand up to industrial PLCs for more advanced process control applications? Many readers expressed considerable interest in a previous Control Design article comparing an Arduino microcontroller with a programmable logic controller (PLC) for basic flow control. This led author Doug Reneker to consider how…
Using readily available AutomationDirect parts, an Auburn University team converted a CPAP machine to a high-functioning emergency ventilator in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the threat of ventilator shortages during the COVID-19 crisis, various organizations called on developers to build “emergency ventilators”. A team at Auburn University’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering went…