JD Controls LLC

Our 7yr old daughter has taken some interest in what I do and asks if she can help or play with stuff. So I set up a Weintek HMI app to control a Banner stacklight over IO Link. She had a lot of fun changing different colors and modes. At one point she had all 4 segments in strobe mode and was dancing and singing. Did I just turn her into a future controls engineer?

Merry Christmas! A little fun with CODESYS Group and Weintek USA, Inc. EasyBuilder Pro software.

I've been enjoying getting familiar with Weintek USA, Inc. Easy Builder Pro HMI software. This is just about finished with design and simulating the sequencer code (customer logo redacted in the top left). Below is the HMI for an inspection system with a robot to sort good/bad parts after inspection. I also wrote all the PLC code for this and did the electrical design. Can't wait to see it all in action. Creating what most of us would refer to as parameterized popups in Easy Builder Pro is quite different from what I'm used to with other platforms. After a short call with tech support to explain what I was after, we reached a solution. For automation systems with a limited budget, Weintek is quite a value compared to other platforms. In addition to the hardware cost being very competitive, the software is free to download, free to use, and tech support is free. No extra costs for your controls techs to view/troubleshoot code. Not to mention these units can also run Codesys for PLC programming! If you are in need of a more budget friendly solution to your automation problems, let's talk!

Monitoring last week's robotic cell project from home using Olis Robotics. With this I can even browse PLC tags and see a history of values.

This upgrade is complete and the machine is running well. Collaborating with Humbotics Automation we replaced several pieces of obsolete equipment from an almost 20 year old install including: ●Fanuc robot ●CompactLogix PLC ●PanelView - and a makeover of the UI ●Ultra3000 DeviceNet servo to a Kinetix5300 over Ethernet/IP ●PowerFlex upgrade with Ethernet/IP instead of hardwired IO This upgrade had to integrate with other existing remote IO panels so they also get a fresh set of schematics to encompass everything as the old set proved to have some inaccuracies. If your system is running on obsolete equipment, don't wait for something to break that you can't find a replacement for. I also have some very budget friendly options for smaller automation systems without sacrificing durability.

First blog post from my website. This goes into detail, complete with screenshots of code and device manual information, about how I got the CAPTRON North America CANEO Series 10 button working with a Banner Engineering IO-Link master. https://lnkd.in/ep_P_UJg

For those at IMTS, head over to the Lyndex-Nikken booth to see their EZ-TEND in action. Here's a sped up video I took when I last worked on it. Pics of the HMI in comments. This was my first Beckhoff Automation system that I had the opportunity to design and program.

https://lnkd.in/eJZJm76Z Those of you at IMTS, go check out Lyndex-Nikken new EZ-TEND machine. This was my first Beckhoff Automation project that I got to do the design and programming for with my previous employer. Recently I was at their office making a few modifications and there will be more to come after the show.

I got to collaborate with Humbotics Automation for this project. They handled the robot, I handled the other controls design and programming. This will be installed at the customer site in about a month and is on a bottle packaging line. It picks up bottles, inverts to place them to a suction gripper, then they are lowered into boxes and sent down the line. Its an upgrade of way obsolete controls and robot. So after some fun troubleshooting exercises around converting a really old Fanuc program to the latest and greatest along with massaging some PLC to robot communication, we got it running well. I even got to play with Olis Robotics new PLC monitoring abilities!

Hey don't laugh at this install, it's at least IP67 rated. I've done a little tinkering with the CAPTRON Caneo IO Link capacitive touch buttons using a Banner Engineering IO Link master. I wrote some code to simulate a use case of these while in the advanced operation mode of full IO Link Process Data control. Yellow pulsing is system stopped, permissives not satisfied. Green pulsuing is system stopped, permissives satisfied, ready to start. Green flashing means the system is starting. Solid green means the system is running. You get full RGB control, flashing/pulse frequency, brightness, and even touch sensitivity. When I've got time I'll be adding a blog post to my website to detail the PLC code and IO Link settings used to achieve this.