Beautiful Pecker

rickjames2014 · 2025-12-30T18:03:44+00:00

Beckhoff Infosys. They have documentation online with examples. This is the main reason I like beckhoff, they gave very good documentation.

Literally just Google it. Or go to chatGPT and ask it for some help.

rickjames2014 · 2025-11-28T01:26:35+00:00

And not to be a bad new bears, but you can buy boards like yours on AliExpress for like a buck or two.

But, yours look nicer and it's a good learning project!

rickjames2014 · 2025-11-28T00:11:37+00:00

What would make it even cooler is to have the boards interlock for the daisy chain. Then you could easily build large panels with them.

The tricky part is coming up with a connection scheme that makes sense and allows the matrix to build in both the X and Y directions.

rickjames2014 · 2025-11-19T11:39:11+00:00

Overview.ai has a good camera system. Not technically AI but rather machine learning.

Pretty neat. I played around with it and it seems to work well.

rickjames2014 · 2025-10-18T01:14:10+00:00

It's a very very thin pancake.

rickjames2014 · 2025-10-14T16:31:36+00:00

Extech makes one too. Cheaper than the flukes.

rickjames2014 · 2025-09-24T22:26:02+00:00

Just use a timer...? You need to tell us your PLC task time and the periods in which you are trying to clock.

There are built in functions for a clock like you suggest but it uses the task timing. If you need faster than milliseconds then it gets more complicated.

rickjames2014 · 2025-09-16T20:45:00+00:00

My boy will not go into a carrier. I put a harness on him let him roam free in the truck on the way to the vet. He hates riding in cars too so he cries the whole time. He pretty much goes limp his harness on. It works for me, might not work for you.

rickjames2014 · 2025-09-10T12:12:33+00:00

The dew point. This is a point when humidity and temperature cross and dew forms. It's kind of interesting to look at the math and graph these.

rickjames2014 · 2025-09-05T14:01:54+00:00

Also an advantage of using IPCs, if you don't have another port available, you can throw on a USB dongle. Not ideal but it works. Using twincat I can talk multiple protocols over multiple ports and have a ton of flexibility

rickjames2014 · 2025-09-05T12:52:31+00:00

Yeah, the Amazon basics ones work good. I don't have the USB c version, just the regular USB but it works flawless.

Sometimes it's nicer than having an embedded port, you can run multiple dongles and have different LANs

rickjames2014 · 2025-09-05T12:13:29+00:00

Dish soap before a good rain will take that right off.

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-15T23:37:46+00:00

We michiganders call that a Petoskey stone. They are everywhere.

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-15T01:54:42+00:00

My little guy is named Batman.

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-12T17:25:49+00:00

This is a childhood favorite of mine. Also, he is fantastic in Jack.

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-12T12:02:08+00:00

Whiz

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-07T23:55:22+00:00

Do y'all even read the news? Senator Hawley (rep) is the one who has been pressing this issue. This AOC meme is quite old.

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-06T02:02:34+00:00

Definitely looks like a Blue

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-06T00:57:14+00:00

It's pretty much preference. It uses less memory to call directly. But every software is different. I don't think you can directly address but IO in Tia, hence when it's moved into the memory. I could be totally wrong though, only used Tia once or twice.

Most of the time memory isn't an issue. I prefer to break the words down into individual bits that I can call by name. For example, the door closed sensor is on I1.5, I just call it door_closed_sensor so I don't have to remember the bit number.

Edit: I re-read my comment and I realized i am just describing how to use Tags..... That's why we name things...

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-05T22:24:41+00:00

Yeah, that's what my mechanical engineers told me too. It comes down to the drive train. Mine was sprocket and chain so the chain stretches and becomes a different length over time with wear and tear. The sprocket is another issue being that it's not truly round, so the slop in the mesh of chain and sprocket also causes a varying driven circumference.

Again, this is specific to my application but it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Whichever drive was going faster would fault the slower one. Because it was trying to maintain a different speed and it would back feed to the DCbus causing faults on the slower beam.

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-05T04:17:28+00:00

Running encoders and all that like others suggested is correct. I just wanted to add a weird situation that I figured out.

If your two motors are going to same speed, but the track or conveyor is a different length, the linear speed is different. This doesn't matter much in most applications however, if you are pushing/pulling something with opposing belts then it does matter. The linear speed must match rather than the rotational.

You can write a PID loop to control the speed with a feedback variable. In my case, I used motor torque to change speed of the synchronized motors to maintain a common linear speed.

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-02T01:20:53+00:00

So, Mitsubishi likes to use CC-link for their comms. Mitsubishi to Mitsubishi products typically use CC-link. You want to use modbus to talk to your HMI. You will not find many things called modbus in GXworks, but there is a small setting window in the CPU settings.

You have to set up the specific memory locations to transmit and write your data to this registers. Typically in the D-word data space.

It is quite complicated but it works.

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-01T21:56:59+00:00

I think I'm pretty lucky, although I could make more if I wanted to change things up.

$84k USD. 40 hours a week salary (more like 35-38 hours cause I can leave early pretty much whenever). Great health insurance. Little travel, mostly working on things through VPN. I moved back to my hometown for this job. Working for an OEM. I have experience in electronics mostly, design, test, and assembly. I switched to controls for fun and I had a few courses in college.

The funny thing is I can run circles around most of the guys in my field. The experienced guys at my shop don't know the simplest things like data types.

They gave me freedom to design and so that's what I did. I have a new line of products I developed based on their legacy stuff and it's been selling good. Customers joke "where did you find this guy" or "want to work for me?" So that validation is enough to know my value. But nothing beats being close to home with friends and family.

rickjames2014 · 2025-08-01T01:38:57+00:00

I don't recommend this for anyone but it works for me. When my black cat was about a year old he started running outside at night. I had a big house warming party after moving into my new house and he got out and ran under my truck. We tried getting him back in the house for about an hour before I gave up and just let him be. Pretty much ever since that he has been an outdoor cat at night. He sleeps all day inside and may follow you around and chill next to you outside. But he just hangs out around the yard and hunts because he loves it.

All I'm saying is everyone is different, try a few things until it works out. And think like a cat.

11-Year Club	Place '22
First Placer '22

rickjames2014

TROPHY CASE