PLC Project Ideas

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KP2

Senior Member
Location
New Milford, CT
Hello folks, I am looking for ideas to create some real life simulations for PLC projects. We use discreet PLCs with 6 inputs, and 4 outputs.

I was thinking about projects like traffic control for a small intersection, or a simple piece of equipment like a hydraulic press.

I have no experience in traffic control wiring, or manufacturing machinery. I am pretty good at creating the programs once I have an idea of what I'm going to control, but wanted real scenarios to use as the idea for the project.

Any links or ideas would be great.

Thanks in advance
Kevin
 

tom baker

First Chief Moderator
Staff member
There is a great book from Allen Bradly "MicroMentor" I bought my copy for $15.00 , but I don't know if its still in print. Its based on the ML1000, 6 in 4 out.
You can get the DC version of that PLC for around $100 and the software is free.
Also there are some forums specific to PLCs, MR PLC and PLC.net
 

KP2

Senior Member
Location
New Milford, CT
Free Allen Bradley software???

It must not be the RSLogix.

We use the Twido line from Square D. They are priced right and the software is available as a free download.

I'll look into the project book and check out the web sites too.

Thanks
Kevin
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
In my PLC class many moons ago I designed a circuit that mimicked the turn signals on a 1968 Thunderbird. Remember them, the 'sequential' turn signals? It's actually not as easy as it sounds to get all the lights to behave just like they were being controlled by the old mechanical controllers. Also remember that the turn signal lights were also the brake lights and when the brakes were applied, one side 'bank' of lights would stay on, and the other would sequence normally.
 
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
IIRC, traffic signals are one of the sample progams available from CLICK of AD. Logic would be the same or close enough to adapt as needed.
Home dryer, oven control, lawn sprinkler with multi zones and master control of pump.

More involved would be a pivot and well control with percent timer and autoreverse, auto restart. A real PIA with the old PICO controller limit of three input instruction then output command of some sort.
 

rapparee

New member
Location
Ireland
Hello folks, I am looking for ideas to create some real life simulations for PLC projects. We use discreet PLCs with 6 inputs, and 4 outputs.

I was thinking about projects like traffic control for a small intersection, or a simple piece of equipment like a hydraulic press.

I have no experience in traffic control wiring, or manufacturing machinery. I am pretty good at creating the programs once I have an idea of what I'm going to control, but wanted real scenarios to use as the idea for the project.

Any links or ideas would be great.

Thanks in advance
Kevin


Hello.

Whenever we were doing our course on the mitsubishi fx, we did a project where we controlled an industrial water/chemical heater. It allowed us to demonstrate a variable output to the element with [PWM] and we used zone compare [ZCP] to measure an acceptable operating temperature.

Of course we also did the obligatory traffic lights.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Hello folks, I am looking for ideas to create some real life simulations for PLC projects. We use discreet PLCs with 6 inputs, and 4 outputs.

I was thinking about projects like traffic control for a small intersection, or a simple piece of equipment like a hydraulic press.

I have no experience in traffic control wiring, or manufacturing machinery. I am pretty good at creating the programs once I have an idea of what I'm going to control, but wanted real scenarios to use as the idea for the project.

Any links or ideas would be great.

Thanks in advance
Kevin

We did traffic controls when I was in school. Even had a model intersection with small neon lights to connect to the PLC. Did find out those neon lights don't work so well connected to triac outputs though but that created the challenge of finding out why and how to work around that problem.

You will need more then 4 outputs for a realistic simple intersection though as you have a minimum of six signal lights to control.

We also had in the lab a small system of bins and augers and we made programs for different mock ups of situations where we would transfer ingredient A, B ... think we even did have a scale on one hopper and could use the weight to trigger measurement, then we had a motor that didn't physically drive anything but called it the "mixer" for our mock ups. We then had to unload the mixing hopper - maybe with certain conditions but the system was set up that it transferred the media back to the original bins so we could run it back through for the next cycle. Media was just plastic pellets like used for injection molding processes.

We used that same setup before we got to PLC's for learning "wired" motor controls. Had to basically wire the thing to run ingredients into the mixer, wire in timers to control certain things like mix time or timed ingredient measurement, etc. Wasn't anything too complex, but did learn and apply interlocking, timing and basic motor controls in something that was sort of experimental yet had definite functions that had to happen or material wasn't going to go where needed.
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
I am not sure what you mean by IIRC, or CLICK of AD.

Can you elaborate.

Thanks

Click is a small and inexpensive PLC sold by Automation Direct. The hardware is not bad, especially for the price. The software is free and worth every penny of it. It is not the worst PLC programming software ever though. But, what do you want for free?
 

KP2

Senior Member
Location
New Milford, CT
Hello.

Whenever we were doing our course on the mitsubishi fx, we did a project where we controlled an industrial water/chemical heater. It allowed us to demonstrate a variable output to the element with [PWM] and we used zone compare [ZCP] to measure an acceptable operating temperature.

Of course we also did the obligatory traffic lights.

Wow, that type of project is outside the scope of the class, we are not using analog inputs, just digital, so push buttons and switches are what we are working with.

Thanks
 

KP2

Senior Member
Location
New Milford, CT
You will need more then 4 outputs for a realistic simple intersection though as you have a minimum of six signal lights to control.

Thank you for pointing that out, traffic controls may be out of the question. Unless I plan to group the students together, I do have 20 PLCs.

That may be more confusing than it's worth.

Thanks
Kevin
 

KP2

Senior Member
Location
New Milford, CT
Thank you all for the input:D with this thread, not that I don't want more ideas, just wanted to thank all of you for the helpful responses. I'll dig into the emulator and look into AD as well.

Kevin
 
Fun little program

Fun little program

This was an assignment we had in a Rocwell class once, and it was a fun little brain teaser.

1) Start and stop the widget maker with push buttons.
2) Run the widget maker lube pump for 10 seconds within 30 seconds of the machine starting.
3) Run the lube pump for 5 seconds every minute after the inital 10 second run.
4) If the lube system doesn't reach pressure for 3 minutes, the machine alarms, and stops.
5) For extra credit, only use one timer. * I found it was actually easier to do with one timer, but that's just me.*

Will.
 
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