DMC is proud to announce that we have earned the Microsoft Gold certified competency for Data Analytics. This certification recognizes DMC for excellence in helping clients gain insight into their data and make predictions and recommendations through the application of Microsoft Power BI and SQL Server technologies. DMC joins an elite tier of Microsoft Partners by adding this Gold competency to our book of six Microsoft certified competencies. Through the Partner Network program, DMC has acce...

Continue reading →

In last month's Geek Challenge, we asked what number contains 22 primes?  This was a unique problem that needed to utilize at least a little bit of computation (to check if something is prime or not). Luckily, prime calculators are a dime a dozen across the interwebs and many computer languages have a “prime check” method built in. Congrats to our winner, Alex Bruno! A few people commented on the problem being too constrained, giving the amount of included prime n...

Continue reading →

Last month, DMC joined 3,200 engineers, educators, and NI developers from 60 countries at NIWeek. The conference in Austin, Texas offered over 200 technical training sessions and 125 expo exhibits. This is an annual event hosted by National Instruments that brings together engineers across the globe to share information on popular topics and technical details of the test, measurement & control industry. Jesse Batsche, Christian Owen, Steven Dusing, Peter Rijks, Da...

Continue reading →

Visitors to DMC may notice our ever-changing "Quote Board," documenting the best engineering jokes and employee one-liners of the moment.

Continue reading →

DMC will host the Chicagoland LabVIEW User’s Group meeting on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. We have had the pleasure of hosting local LabVIEW developers for many years, and we are excited to open our space to the community. The goal of our meetings is to discuss various LabVIEW programming techniques, technologies, application design patterns and much more. We use this opportunity to network with other programmers in the Chicagoland area.  Agenda  At this year's meeting, we w...

Continue reading →

Need to upload a project from a MELSEC F-series PLC? You're in luck! This tutorial explains how to upload the software on a MELSEC F-series PLC using GX Developer, the MELSOFT developing platform for this line of controllers.    1. Connect the PLC to your PC. MELSEC F-Series PLCs use an SC-09 RS232 to RS422 adapter cable, which can be purchased from many places, including on Amazon. This cable connects to the front, female port on your PLC and plugs dire...

Continue reading →

On May 16th, fifteen high school students from across Chicago came to our Bucktown office for a hands-on workshop geared toward the engineering and consulting industry. As part of our DMC Cares initiative, DMC partnered with Chicago Ideas Week to host a STEM inspired lab for their You(th) Ambassador Program. DMC Cares is an internal initiative that encourages DMCers to plan or participate in local charitable events, and we were happy to open our office to CIW You(th) to give them a behind-t...

Continue reading →

DMC St. Louis recently unveiled its new radio platform: 90.7 WDMC. At the May 2018 all-company meeting, the first podcast from this NPR spoof station was officially released. What hard-hitting story did our expert engineers in Missouri take on? Of course, they fearlessly informed us of the newest developments in the great sandwich debacle. The podcast spoof was inspired by the St. Louis office’s obsession with sandwiches. At DMC St. Louis, a deep love for sandwiches is rooted in every i...

Continue reading →

Need to make data available from your 1500 PLC to a Modbus RTU master? As long as you have a Modbus RTU capable serial communications adapter module, setting up a Modbus RTU server is pretty simple. Communications Adapter Since S7-1500 PLCs don't typically come with onboard serial communication ability, you'll need to use an adapter module that supports the Modbus RTU slave protocol, with a port interface that meets your system connection requirements. See below for two ...

Continue reading →

I was listening to the radio, and some self-proclaimed geek said that her phone number was "seven prime numbers." At first, I interpreted this as "seven prime digits," which is probably what she meant. But then it got me thinking, 23 has three prime numbers in it (2, 3, and 23), and 373 contains six primes! The most primes you can pack into a seven-digit number is 22, so what number contains 22 primes?  Remember: neither 0 nor 1 are prime; and 5003 contains 5...

Continue reading →

Visitors to DMC may notice our ever-changing "Quote Board," documenting the best engineering jokes and employee one-liners of the moment.  

Continue reading →

Custom solutions like those that DMC implements as a National Instruments Alliance Member require continued education and certifications like LabVIEW's Associate Developer, Developer, Embedded Systems Developer, Architect, and Professional Instructor certifications. DMC continues to demonstrate our expertise and commitment to excellence by regularly expanding our list of LabVIEW certified engineers, and we aren't slowing down. Recently, five more engineers achieved certifica...

Continue reading →

As a Siemens Solution Partner, the annual Siemens Automation Summit is one of our most anticipated events each year. The conference brings together hundreds of manufacturing professionals who use Siemens automation technologies to share industry innovations and best practices. The 2018 Siemens Automation Summit will be held from June 25-28 at the JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort in Florida.  The 2018 Automation Summit will feature over 50 user led presentations a...

Continue reading →

DMC passed its fourth CSIA audit this month. As a member of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA), DMC is required to undergo a third-party audit once every three years to maintain our certification. CSIA Certification is the capstone of implementing best practices for a control system integration business. Audit Approach Everyone at DMC is involved in the certification process to ensure that the best practices become part of the company’s ‘DNA’. DMC foll...

Continue reading →

DMC has been attending the annual Control Systems Integrators Association (CSIA) Executive Conference for over a decade. It's a wonderful opportunity to connect with fellow integrators from around the world and share best practices. This year, CSIA set a record of around 600 attendees to the conference! DMC was proud to be part of the record-breaking event by leading two presentations.  The 2018 CSIA Executive Conference took place at the Hyatt Regency in San Fran...

Continue reading →

DMC puts together fun employee events almost every week. Between welcome parties for new employees and activity fund events (company-sponsored outings that employees plan), the social calendar at DMC is always full of events that are bound to create amazing memories. As part of a recent activity fund event, the Chicago office headed down the street to The Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club in our own neighborhood, Bucktown. The enormous and stylish space is perfect for everything from small g...

Continue reading →

A steady increase in manufacturing facilities in the Greater Tahoe Area has given many DMC engineers the opportunity to spend some time in Reno, NV. When spending an extended period away from our home office, we like to bring more of our favorite traditions to our new remote location, so we’ve made a point to plan fun activity fund outings on weekends like wine tasting in Sonoma Valley, snowmobiling in Portola, CA, and skiing at Heavenly Mountain. Activity fund outings are fun even...

Continue reading →

This Spring, I traveled to Washington DC and met with a congregation of other leaders in the technology industry at the invitation of Microsoft’s advocacy organization, Voices for Innovation. The occasion was an “advocacy blitz” that the group had planned for the following day to inform senators and representatives from all states about issues that directly affect the technology industry. I received an invitation to join the three member delegation from Illinois in DC to adv...

Continue reading →

I recently developed an HMI using WinCC 7.4 for an automation project. Building it from the ground up afforded me the opportunity to deviate from WinCC’s default skeuomorphic controls and instead experiment with more modern, flatter UI elements found on consumer-facing products like smartphones and web interfaces (think Facebook, Google, and Apple). I relied on WinCC’s faceplate types to create generic controls that could be dragged and dropped as needed without additional ov...

Continue reading →

For a recent project, I created a combo box object that is set using a VBScript. The following blog details some advantages of using a VBScript and four steps to loading a combo box using a VBScript in WinCC Pro. Advantages of VBScript The main advantage of using a VBScript is that you can display a variety of data in the combo box. It allows you to access the combo box's properties and links those directly to PLC tags instead of having a static combo box that di...

Continue reading →