It an industrial digital controller that is used for controlling of process or operations of production. It can be main controller or cab be used as a slave controller too. PLC was invented in 1960 in US for automobile industries. The main purpose of the PLC is to make the process error less, most effective and faster the process of manufacturing or production. PLC controls the process by controlling the various electronics or electrical peripherals that drives the whole machine or a part of machine. These days the PLC are controlling the main robots of the industry . These robots are the main process component in the production . These robot are faster small in size and have programmable features to control them.
Photo (By MakeMagazinDE - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77941648)
A PLC can have small size and various lines in its architecture. To control the machines it have some input and lines that are called as I/O pins . Maximum PLC have both digital and analog I/O pins. These pins can be from few to thousands in one PLC device. The group of pins are called as Port . One PLC may have few ports that can be used in bunch or individually as per requirement of the user. Maximum PLCs are designed to mount into a dedicated rack by one rail method. But now days we can see a various types of physical designs. PLCs are most suitable for automobile industry , Manufacturing industry. PLCs can play a role of supervisor at a manufacturing process thus limit the probabilities of the error in the products due to process handling.
A PLC can handle below mentioned industry devices or peripherals.
1. Motor Drive through drive controller.
2. Switching ( ON-OFF) of a power device.
3. Delay between the two events in process.
4. Can record the Temperature,
5. Can detect the color .
6. can measure the weight of the final product.
7. Can control the robot made for picking, placing ,painting or welding etc.
8. Can have the control on speed of production or manufacturing.
These are very few functions of a PLC device that can be easily done . These all tasks can be done by using its software and hardware. A PLC have two main parts in it.
A. Hardware.
B. Software.
PLC Hardware
PLC have its own state-of-the-art hardware structure to sense and control the real world. As told before the main function of the controller is to control the devices. It have one Master controller or few slave controllers to deal with the real world. It happens with the help of its input and output pins. A PLC controller may have lots of I/O pins. An industry PLC runs only only on 24 Volts DC but few of them can be designed at various DC levels. The output pins gives output of 24 VDC.
PLC Software
To run the process as per requirement of the user PLC have its own software design and commands. PLC software is a rail based software that is written in between the two rails.
PLC use a special program to get programmed . It uses the unique graphical programming language that is call ladder diagram. The example photo of a ladder program is shown in the picture below.
PLC have made our industry more reliable, powerful, quick and error less. We are making new thinks with zero errors . Robots are working as much similar or better than the humans in industry. This all is possible just due to PLC advancement.
What are advantages of PLC ?
1. Easy programming due to graphical programming method.
2. Highly reliable.
3. No wear and tear.
4. No maintenance.
5. cost effective.
6. Customization possible.
7. Remotely Supervising possible.
8. Safe for unsafe environment.
That is for now we will meet soon with a new topic.
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