A great way to create 3D structures is to use wire bending machines.  These machines create parts that, when brought together, create amazing geometries that the most creative designers can imagine.  In order to accomplish this task, one might reasonably think that the parts must be 3D.  In fact, they can be 2D, and this leads to the question, how does one create parts for a 2D wire bending machine from a 3D CAD design? The answer you do not want to hear is to have the designer o...

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As a Siemens Solution Partner, DMC looks forward to attending the annual Siemens Automation Summit each year. Focused on the end users of Siemens automation products, the Summit offers opportunities for best practice sharing, networking, free hands-on training, and providing product input and prioritization for future enhancements. This year’s event, held June 24 – 27 in New Orleans, focuses on the theme of “Community. Experiences. Productivity." This year, DMC is proud to p...

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In Part 1, I talked about how battery capacity is rated and how certain conditions can affect relative battery capacity. This case study will specifically focus on a solution DMC provided for a low power embedded application designed around user interaction with a high base current draw. Many of its principles can be applied to all embedded applications. Active/Sleep Programming One of the first steps DMC took to help improve battery life was to use an active/sleep architecture for running...

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As portable devices become more capable, powerful and smaller, people expect them to have more features, perform better, and replace the functionality of multiple devices. However, while embedded performance has skyrocketed, battery performance has stayed relatively the same. This has forced developers and engineers to be much more conscious of power consumption. The Simple Case When discussing battery life and power consumption, average current draw is king. If certain electronics in a de...

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This month's Geek Challenge takes the classic quick crossword puzzle to a new nerdy level. Simply answer the clues to solve the puzzle. Submit your answers to geekchallenge@dmcinfo.com. The first person to respond with the most correct answers will be this month's winnner.

DMC will be attending the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA) 2013 Executive Conference from May 1 - 4. The annual CSIA conference provides certified control system integrators from around the world a unique opportunity to share industry expertise. Held this year in St. Petersburg, Florida, the event's 2013 theme is "Stay on the Ball." As the only CSIA certified control systems integrator in Chicago, DMC is excited to meet and share ideas with other integrators who are committed to ...

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Microsoft's "New Office 365" plan lineup for 2013 is pretty extensive, providing customers with many choices to consider. Since you cannot change plan families (more on this later), it is critical to be aware of a few subtle, but key details that differentiate the new plans from one another. If you are unsure if moving to the Office 365 cloud is a good move for your organization, here are a few scenarios that often drive businesses to move to the Office 365 cloud: ...

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Dan Freve, Project Manager Each month DMC's Employee Spotlight takes a closer look at a different employee to learn more about the people who make up Team DMC. This month, Dan Freve gives us a peek at DMC's new tilt-table demo and his Caribbean reef shark dive.

Although some engineers might want to think otherwise, the employees at DMC are not robots. We are humans and humans thrive on variety. Unlike robots, humans can’t work continuously for eight hours and produce the same results because we get tired and most of us get bored after thinking about the same thing for more than two hours. Wouldn’t it be cool if what some people call distractions, we called productivity boosters? Wouldn't it be cool if you could play ping pong or basket...

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The Shamrock Shuffle 8K is a favorite DMC tradition. Employees have represented DMC in the 4.97 mile race through downtown Chicago every year since 2005. The Shamrock Shuffle is meant to be the first big race of spring and is traditionally held in March, but after a few years of unpredictable Chicago weather the race date is now in April.  The weather cooperated on April 7, treating us to sunny skies and a slight breeze off Lake Michigan. It was a great day for enjoying a run through ...

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SharePoint offers a little-known but incredibly useful feature allowing for bulk adds, updates, and deletes of list items via the SPWeb.ProcessBatchData method. The usage is a bit complex because you need to pass CAML markup to the method to perform the operation on multiple list items. This CAML must contain the list item ID, list GUID, and relevant column names and values in an XML collection. There are numerous examples throughout the web showing how to write this CAML for manipulating list i...

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Those who visit DMC may notice our ever-changing "Quote Board." This is where we document the most infamous utterances of the moment.

I had the opportunity recently to work for a client who wanted to extract log data from a Siemens WinAC PLC using a C# .NET client. The application was archiving software that would run when another software component encountered an error. Log data was assembled from a variety of sources in the system stack, including the Siemens PLC. In order to keep the PLC's Step 7 code independent of this diagnostic logging, I used the Siemens WinAC ODK. The WinAC API exposes two interfaces, IPLC and IFeatu...

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DMC is proud to announce the opening of a new office in Boston. Driven by the desire to better serve our growing customer base, we look forward to expanding DMC's world-class solutions to a Boston office location this June. “We are encouraged by the positive feedback that we have received from current and potential clients regarding the opening of this office in Boston, and we look forward to its success,” states Frank Riordan, President. DMC is targeting the Cambridge/Somerville ...

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DMC is proud to announce the opening of a new office in Boston this summer! To celebrate our East Coast expansion, DMC is hosting a Boston Bash on Thursday, May 23. If you've been to our Tres de Mayo or Oktoberfest parties, you know they're a memorable time not to be missed! If you haven't, we can promise plenty of Boston-themed fun. We hope you are able to join us! DMC's Boston Bash May 23, 2013 4 p.m. - 10 p.m. 2222 N. Elston Ave, Suite 200 Chicago, IL 60614 [Directions]...

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Last year we created a formula-based March Madness tournament picking challenge with several potential meaningful statistics to use to generate a winning formula. While fun, the exercise proved that the winning formula doesn't depend on logical inputs. This year, we challenge you to pick the best bracket using some less conventional stats. The winner will pick the best bracket by predicting the winners based on their uniform color, nickname/mascot, and the length of head c...

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Being the lone DMC Mom, I wanted to plan an opportunity for DMC kids to take advantage of one of the cool DMC sponsored activities. The perfect child friendly event: Disney on Ice at the United Center!  DMC employees, spouses and 10 DMC kids met in Chicago to watch the Disney princesses tell their stories while gliding over a stage of ice. We watched Ariel (The Little Mermaid) fall in love with a human, Belle (Beauty and the Beast) be enchanted by the Beast, Rapunzel (Tangled) discover...

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Johnny Sun, Systems Engineer Each month DMC's Employee Spotlight takes a closer look at a different employee to learn more about the people who make up Team DMC. This month, Johnny Sun takes us in the fast lane as he shares his love of motorcycling, indoor racing, and roller coasters.

One of DMC's most popular social events is our annual ski trip. Supplemented by DMC's activity fund, past trips have taken us to Breckenridge and Vail. This year, 16 DMC employees and friends headed for the snowy slopes outside Salt Lake City. Over a long weekend we managed to tackle both Snow Basin and Powder Mountain, splitting up into large and small groups each day. Our group ranged in experience from beginner to advanced skiers along with a handful of snowboarders....

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Those who visit DMC may notice our ever-changing "Quote Board." This is where we document the most infamous utterances of the moment.