Hello everyone, I am Maple Leaf, and I have been in the PLC industry for over twenty years. Today, let’s talk about something practical—PLC communication essentials. To be honest, communication issues in the field are the most common type of faults I encounter, without exception! Many novice engineers have stumbled in this area, including myself … Read more
Is your PLC data stuck? This real-time processing solution makes production responses three times faster! Let me share a few shocking real stories. Last year, a food factory experienced a 3-second delay in the PLC data of their filling machine, which led to a failure to detect the issue of improperly sealed caps in time, … Read more
Essential Books for Mastering PLCs (Download link for e-books) OPC UA The OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is a new technology created by the OPC Foundation, which is more secure, reliable, and vendor-neutral, allowing for the transmission of raw data and pre-processed information from the manufacturing site to production planning or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) … Read more
IntroductionIn the workshop, PLCs act like the “nerve endings” of the factory, while the MES system serves as the “brain”. To enable efficient communication between them, the OPC UA protocol is the most reliable “translator”. Today, we will guide you step-by-step on how to successfully connect PLCs to MES systems via OPC UA, complete with … Read more
Click the blue text to follow! Old Li Talks About PLC Function Block Programming: Making Devices “Understand Each Other” A few days ago, Xiao Wang asked me: “Old Li, why can’t our new Siemens PLC connect with that Japanese Mitsubishi one? I followed the manual, but it seems like the devices can’t ‘understand’ each other.” … Read more
Practical Sharing: How I Built the Siemens S7-1200 IoT Gateway Hello, old friends! Hello everyone, I am Engineer Wang, and I have been engaged in automation and IoT integration for over ten years. Today, I would like to share with you a project experience I recently completed—how to build a reliable IoT gateway using the … Read more
Click the blue text to follow! Practical Communication Optimization of PLCs in Factory Information Systems Last week, the newly installed automated production line in the workshop encountered issues right after it went into operation. The data collection was unstable, intermittently dropping, and the production reports were filled with missing data. The factory manager was furious … Read more
With the advent of Industry 4.0, device interconnectivity has become a crucial direction for upgrading and transforming factory automation. Today, let’s discuss how to utilize ABB PLC to achieve device interconnectivity and create smart factories. Industrial IoT Infrastructure The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) essentially allows devices to “speak”. Just like chatting on WeChat, it … Read more
PLC Data Conversion: Data Format Conversion Technology to Solve Heterogeneous System Interaction Issues! Introduction Hello everyone! Today we are going to talk about a magical technology that allows different brands of PLCs to “shake hands”—data format conversion! In factory automation, have you ever encountered the awkward situation where Siemens PLC and Rockwell PLC “speak different … Read more
As an engineer with over 20 years of experience in industrial automation, I have witnessed the evolution of industrial control from traditional PLCs to Industry 4.0. I remember in 2015, I took on a remote monitoring project for a large pharmaceutical company. At that time, the client wanted to achieve real-time data collection and analysis … Read more