Entries for 'Jon Carson'

I recently had the opportunity to attend my first Siemens technical conference. The conference, called SITEC, took place May 16-20 in Atlanta, GA, and Kristie Shea and I represented DMC. SITEC is Siemens’ technical conference where solution partners like DMC, distributors, and internal Siemens staff learn about the latest Siemens software and hardware technology solutions. I had a great time seein... [Read the rest of this blog...]

 The Siemens S-7 300 line of PLCs has about a million great features integrated into the programming environment. After I recently inherited a PLC project where some (many) of these were not implemented, I thought it might be a good idea to do a recap on some of the more useful functions Step7 has to offer us. By far one of the most useful, and sadly underutilized, capabilities available to ... [Read the rest of this blog...]

Since their conception PLC programs have been founded on simple programs. However in the past few years automation requirements have grown more complex and demanding, resulting in PLC manufacturers beginning to include some higher level programming concepts in their software packages.   

[Read this blog...]

A lot of us here at DMC like to get outdoors and stay active, even during these brutal Midwestern winters. This Saturday 5 DMC employees including myself braved the cold to spend a great day out at Alpine Valley ski resort. Jody Koplo, Jesse Batsche, Jessica Mlinaric, Eric Nielsen and I all had a blast learning how to snowboard, even though some were more succesful than others! Here is our own Jes... [Read the rest of this blog...]

Ever wanted to use those very nice looking Siemens touchpad HMIs with a third party controller Siemens doesn't officially support? On a recent project I was presented with the following scenario: a customer already had several Siemens touch-screen HMIs in stock, and wanted to use one to help operators control an Elau motion controller. Of course to do this I had to get the HMI and controller to ta... [Read the rest of this blog...]

Once you are familiar with their capabilities and methodologies, Siemens PLCs have the potential to make controls programming quicker and easier than ever.

[Read this blog...]

For my latest project, I had an interesting challenge, which I thought some of you readers might find equally interesting. It involved a (relatively) simple control system, with an Allen Bradley MicroLogix PLC, and 30 or so inputs and outputs. The challenge was that the customer wanted to be able to access (and potentially control) live machine data from anywhere on their network, while buying as ... [Read the rest of this blog...]