Blogs

WEBINAR - SD Cards

Recorded Live: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 By Jas Lettieri Applications Engineer - Unitronics Inc. This webinar will cover the basics of utilizing SD cards with Unitronics controllers: 1. SD Tools Format Card 2. SD Example Project Log Line (.ulg) Full DT (.udt) DT Append (.udt) Excel to SD (.csv) Copy SD to DT (read tags) 3. SD Explorer Configure communication settings Read Card Can only open (.udt) and (.csv) 4. SD Manager Allows display of UniLog (.ul

February 16, 2011

AMPS Industrial Completes Control System for Custar Quarry

My company, AMPS Industrial Controls, recently finished the installation and start-up on a control system for the Custar Stone Quarry project we mentioned late last year. This quarry is located in northwest Ohio and it supplies stone for road projects all over the region. We are pleased to say that everything went very well and the quarry is now up and running with wireless Ethernet communication between all three control stations. This was really a fun project so we would like to take this o

January 21, 2011

WEBINAR - Data Tables and Data Logging - Part II

Recorded Live: Thursday, January 19, 2011 Presented By Anthony Nicolaides Applications Engineer - Unitronics Inc. Part 1 - We will explore how to set up a data table in VisiLogic and use it to log data. We will show how to create a data table, and how to link each column to a register type. We will then use the ladder section to create a time/event driven routine to log data. Part 2 - We will learn how to use DataXport to pull the data table from the PLC and save it to the PC as an excel f

January 19, 2011

WEBINAR - Data Tables and Data Logging - Part I

Recorded Live: Thursday, January 13, 2011 Presented By Anthony Nicolaides Applications Engineer - Unitronics Inc. Part 1 - We will explore how to set up a data table in VisiLogic and use it to log data. We will show how to create a data table, and how to link each column to a register type. We will then use the ladder section to create a time/event driven routine to log data. Part 2 - We will learn how to use DataXport to pull the data table from the PLC and save it to the PC as an excel

January 13, 2011

Increased Inventory

Having analyzed our 2010 sales, looking particularly at areas of dynamic growth, we are increasing our inventory of Unitronics products. The increases will be seen mainly in the Vision Series of OPLCs but Snap I/O modules and Expansion I/O modules will also be increased. 2010 was a great year for us, in no small part due to the growth we saw in Unitronics sales. This is nice to see because it comes as a direct result of the strategy of increasing our presence on the web and emphasizing the qual

January 7, 2011

WEBINAR - Timers, HMI Jumps, & More - Now in HD!

Recorded Live: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 By Jas Lettieri Applications Engineer - Unitronics Inc. This webinar explains: Types and uses for timers in Vision controllers. How to add HMI displays in the project and jump between them. The webinar takes a little more than one hour and is divided into 5 parts for easy access and learning. Download the VisiLogic project (*.vlp file) which was created during the session! You can now expand the videos to be full screen 1080p HD quality.

December 15, 2010

V1040 to be used in new brewery for Dogfish Head Brewing Company

Next week I will be traveling to meet with Sam Calagione and his head brewmaster, Floris. I'll be traveling with the president and production engineer from a longtime customer, Sabco, to work on a new nano-brewery. We’ve built the control panels for Sabco’s Brew-Magic for many years but there is a need for a similar, but larger, brewing system to serve the booming craft brewing industry. This is what we’ll be working on next week. The really cool part is getting to work on it with Sam and Floris

December 10, 2010

WEBINAR - Ethernet

Recorded Live: Wednesday, December 8, 2010 Presented By Anthony Nicolaides Applications Engineer - Unitronics Inc. Ethernet – Learn the basics of setting up an Ethernet connection to communicate to and program the controller. Learn about the setup and configuration of the card, and the sockets. Learn how to use the remote management tool “Remote Operator” to bring up the screen of the PLC on the PC over the network. Take a quick look at Modbus IP and see how to communicate between two contro

December 8, 2010

WEBINAR - Buttons and Lights

Recorded Live: Wednesday, December 1, 2010 Presented By Anthony Nicolaides Applications Engineer - Unitronics Inc. Buttons and Lights – Learn how to work with the HMI and Ladder in VisiLogic. We will use contacts and coils as inputs and outputs for out ladder. We will link the ladder to HMI elements and see how to affect the Ladder from the HMI. We will also learn about some of the HMI tools and functions. Downloading to the controller will also be covered. This is a great first step for any

Unitronics' Blog: PLCs, HMIs and more

December 1, 2010

From: Multiple Passwords by Bruce L

When multiple password levels are needed, there are only two choices. You can create a Password Entry Button for each password level or use a Numeric Entry and compare the entered password against the password levels in the logic to set the desired levels. However, the negative to using the Numeric Entry for passwords is that the digits that are entered on the screen while the users touches the screen. This can be a BAD problem. Here is a sample program that will draw a black line on the screen

November 23, 2010

Westermo & Unitronics Play Well Together

My company (AMPS Industrial Controls) is working with Speiser Electric Company and Gerken Paving Products to update the entire control system running the stone quarry in Custer, Ohio. This is a big project because a huge section of conveyor and crusher are being added to the existing equipment.Since the work needed is extensive, they have decided to take the opportunity to update all the controls and add wireless communication between each PLC in the quarry. One central PLC with color touch-scre

November 19, 2010

Great new products on the way...

Wow, I can't tell you how eager I am to get my hands on the new products coming our way from Unitronics. I've been biting my tongue not mentioning them for a couple months so that Unitronics could release the information on their timetable but...Both products were displayed at the PackExpo convention in Chicago earlier this month and Jas is blabbing about them over on the Forum. So I guess it's safe for me to reveal my enthusiasm.There could be more than what I know about but I'm told these thre

November 12, 2010

Data Tables & Learning from Mistakes

Twelve years ago when I started writing basic ladder programs for PLCs I made a lot of mistakes. Seemed like I was always getting halfway through a project only to realize I'd taken the wrong approach and needed to take two steps back before I could move forward. Frequently this resulted in me scrapping the entire program and starting over. I told myself that was fine. I was learning, right? Well... a dozen or so years later I'm still learning. Now I say, "You never want to stop learning," but I

November 5, 2010

Ummm - what time is it?

I just programmed a timed filtration system, and was very pleased at how simple the code is to handle a simple on/off timer with selectable day-of-the week: Pretty neat, huh? I coupled that with a simple screen letting the user set start and stop times and select the days to run: and the lion's share of the job was done. But there's much more to Unitronics timekeeping than just simple timers. In the forums, there's been some discussion of the difference between RTC and UTC, the use of U

October 29, 2010

The Fascinating World of Twitter

Well, I never thought it would happen but people have convinced us to enter the world of Twitter. We'll be tweeting often about Unitronics, control system design and the electrical control panels we build. We'd be honored to have you follow us @matthew_AMPS.

October 22, 2010

Unitronics in General Motors

An interesting thing happened to me a couple weeks ago. Well, let me back up... We prefer to do all our control system design around the Unitronics Vision line. Specifically, we've found the V350 and V570 products to be the most suitable for typical applications. They're simply the most economical, full-featured products out there. So when we were approached by a new customer to help with their machine controls we immediately thought of Unitronics. Simple application, really. Just use the PLC

October 7, 2010

You know, that's not Windows...

If you were to look over my shoulder while I'm working at my desktop or laptop PC, you'd probably notice pretty quickly that my computers don't look quite like most. Firstly, my keyboard doesn't have its letters in the usual "QWERTY" layout - I use the Dvorak layout, optimized for faster typing with minimum finger movement. I credit that (along with the refusal to use a trackpad) with curing my carpal tunnel syndrome - it took a month or so to switch over, but I've never regretted it. There's

October 5, 2010

Simon's Blog

The term HART is great for bad puns

I was offered an unused ABB pressure transducer with HART interface (see http://www.hartcomm.org/). HART stands for Highway Addressable Remote Transducer. Showing the ability to read all values from such a device using Unitronics is an advantage for applications in the mining and resources sectors in particular.Using the Turck BL20-E-GW-EN and BL20-2AIH-I a simple ModbusTCP gateway module was possible. Whilst all HART values are accessible as Modbus registers, the conventional 4..20mA input v

Simon

October 1, 2010

Feelin' a little Loopy!

When Programmable Logic Controllers were first introduced, their programs were geared toward the replacement of simple relay circuits. Logic statement 0 was processed first, then logic statement 1, and so on until an END instruction was reached. Then the PLC's supervisory software, or "Operating System", would do some housekeeping - update timers and counters, send outputs to the physical devices, read inputs from the physical devices, and run the user's stored program again. Logic statement fiv

September 10, 2010

Hey, you - what's the password?

One of the requirements I frequently find in customer specifications is that Operator Terminals shall have eight hierarchical levels of password protection. The idea there is that an operator, for example, enters the level 1 password to do operator things, and a supervisor can enter a level 2 password to do anything the operator can do, plus supervisor stuff. I have yet to actually see an application where all eight levels were used for anything, but somebody somewhere once decided that eight

September 1, 2010

So I went to the Library for some Strings...

So I'm easing my way back into VisiLogic land, in-between phone calls from TV trucks. The other morning I get a call from one of our techs on a startup somewhere in Texas, telling me that the customer is requesting that all the panels on the "A" side of the facility have their primary power feeds fed from the "A" side breaker panels, and that on the "B" side, "A" side breakers should go to the secondary power inputs. For this they wake me up? Just swap the feeds on the "B" side, right? Unfort

August 28, 2010

Machine Controls - Overhead Conveyor

In this entry, I would like to highlight one of our machine controls projects that used the Unitronics V130 OPLC: AMPS has been working with JML Services and their die storage systems for over ten years. These machines have been installed in most states all over the country to help printing companies keep track of their die plates. A corrugated box manufacturer, for instance, may have over 1000 die plates to store and keep track of. This could take up valuable floor space and be a nightmare t