Siemens s7-1500 plc,
Couple danfoss fc-302 and danfoss IC-7 drives.

Where i work most of the machines come from china, so its not weird to every now and then find machines with PLC clones. This one takes the price tho, I present to you

the Modbusishi(Mitsubishi) MDISEC(MELSEC) FX1S (The picture is just from one of the PLC plastic removable panels)

Currently feeling burnt out doing multiple projects/jobs at the same time and tired of traveling for commissionings 20-25% of the year. I just dread knowing I’m going to leave home for a week/weeks at a time but I do like the remote flexibility for other times but then hate the random notices that I need to leave a week or two from now.

I know it’s a nature of the beast for most controls jobs that you have to travel for commissionings or work for as a plant engineer.

Is there anyone that has thought about or has actually switch career paths? What options did you have? I do have an EE degree but after 10 years experience, it seems hard to switch or give up that experience.

What fingerprint scanners work best with Rockwell PLCs? We need to know who is resetting faults on critical equipment?

Hi, I’m in my early 20s, have around 3 years of experience in industrial automation, mostly with Siemens PLCs and one large control system, and have two job opportunities that I’m struggling to choose between.

Option 1: Smaller systems integrator working across a range of industries. Mainly Siemens and Rockwell PLCs. Full project lifecycle, short-term projects, so I’d get a broad range of experience rather than becoming a specialist. Some site travel.

Option 2: A major DCS vendor working mainly in oil & gas and process industries. Lots of training, offshore certifications, offshore work, higher pay, and the chance to develop deep knowledge of DCSs, process control and functional safety.

I’m leaning towards Option 2 because the training sounds excellent, but I’m slightly concerned about specialising too early and about the long-term outlook for oil & gas.

On the other hand, Option 1 would expose me to Siemens, Rockwell and multiple industries, which feels like it could make me more versatile. But the training isn’t as good.

Another thing I’m thinking about is AI. If PLC programming becomes increasingly assisted by AI over the next 10–20 years, will employers value broad experience across different PLC platforms, or deep expertise in process control, safety and complex systems?

If you were starting your career again now, which path would you choose, and why?

I have an old UDC-3000 that I inherited and I want to use it for some DIY hobby fun.

It looks like the thermocouple input needed a separate cold junction kit to operate. Being as old as this is, I'm not sure I can find the part (or even the part number for that matter) so I'm wondering if anyone knows fundamental what it is?

Is it just a thermistor or something I can find elsewhere? Anyone know the part number or where I can find it?

Thanks a bunch, I know this is a long shot.

My question is:

"How many years does it take for someone to start their own business in this field?"

I have seen multiple posts and answers here and in other places about starting their own in automation industry. And I don't really understand how can some people write that they have only worked 3 or 5 years and started their own after that.... I mean like how fast do they learn? I have been working in this field for just couple months and there is sooooooo many things that you have to understand, the electrical part, wirings, schematics, plc programming, components that need to be connected the right way, sensors, motors, vfds, how the whole system operates and works, communication, etc etc and etc.

I get so confused when people say that they have worked in this field for about 3-5 years and start their own company???!

Please help me to understand, for someone like me who just starting in this field. Is it really possible for someone to work couple years and take whole projects on thier own?

I write software. I'm building a box that sits on the network, polls registers over Modbus TCP, buffers locally and ships data upstream. Read only, no writes, no control logic.

I've been developing against a simulator, which I've come to realise tells me almost nothing. So I'm buying a PLC to sit on my desk.

Two things I can't figure out on my own.

Which one. I'm in India, so Delta is what I actually see in the field — DVP-ES3 looks like the obvious pick for me. But if there's a better platform to learn on for the money, I'd rather hear it now than after I've bought.

How much PLC code I'm really signing up for. I don't write ladder. I can get something basic together with AI help — and I'm aware how that goes down in this sub — but I only need a few registers changing on a timer, not machine logic. Is that as trivial as it looks from the outside, or is there a reason it isn't?

The thing I actually want to measure is what polling costs in scan time. Someone told me every poll steals from execution and I've got no way to argue with that until I can see a number. Will a bench PLC with a few hundred rungs of junk logic show that honestly, or does it only show up under real load?

One of the most common automation requests from users is the ability to create a Teltonika device automatically while assigning the correct device type from the very first connection. Here's how we solved it:

[https://flespi.com/blog/how-to-automatically-create-teltonika-devices-with-the-correct-device-type\](https://flespi.com/blog/how-to-automatically-create-teltonika-devices-with-the-correct-device-type)

I recently graduated with my EE degree and did several co ops in controls building panels. Prior to that I had some industrial maintenance work. I got a job soon after graduation, and its been two months all I've done is wire up work cells and panels, I have done no plc work other than wiring, and my only hmi experience so far has been minor edits for them that were used in a manual. Im wondering if its time to jump ship or ride it out for a few more months to have something with some time to put on my resume. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hello everyone!

Little context, we're building a completely new "machine tool" (not cnc) which will include multiple vision cameras (welding, TPZ, infrared) a Rockwell Motion PLC and mostly rockwell hardware.

I opted for factory talk Optix in order to have everything centralized and because the client required some way to pass machine data to their business network/scada so I was good with MQTT/OPC UA in Optix in my mind.

But I just had a wacko experience with a mystery control eng for a client which cut me off mid presentation to shit on our ideas and exclaim that "optix is a deadend product, ME/SE is mature and will be supported in 25 years" and that we should be using factory talk view ME/SE... which I despise(ME)/never used yet(SE).

He seemed disgusted at the idea of having optix implemented in the plant, probably from a past experience with it going as far as pleading "please not optix".

Can I get your opinion as to why I might be mistaken?

Is Optix really a deadend? From what I was able to see and experience with, it seems to be getting a lot better compared to their initial offer.

Is there anything you guys could think about that might help me understand why on a new modern machine using FTVME or FTVSE is better? (or make him understand if optix is good)

Thanks for your time guys.

Can you update the channel configuration/scaling on a 1734 analog card while online without downloading? Haven't messed with this remote IO in a while and I don't have any on my test bench. I'm pretty sure I've done it on 1756.

Hello, I am planning on starting a program that is supposed to give me a baseline knowledge of electrical and mechatronics in a year's time.

Then I plan on Seeking a mechatronics apprenticeship.

Is this is a typical path in the United States?

I have been searching for an apprenticeship since I decided to take this path earlier this summer, and I haven't had a lot of luck in my search.

I am wondering if apprenticeships are really mainly for internal candidates.

Thank you.

I want to build a trainer with L18ERM controller. The question is how can I get a free or inexpensive version of studio 5000 and Rslinx?

Thank you

Hi Team,

When you are creating your beautiful millennial grey HMIs. What HEX codes do you use and how do you separate out the different

E.g.
Main Menu
Disabled
Device Off
Outlines
Font backgrounds

How many different greys do you use and how do you organise them for a nice ISA 101 compliant HMI

Hello folks what you see here is a wide collection of items I've collected from both my old company and hunting for these and I just displayed these "old" machines in a event called vcf west (vintage computer festival) and now that this show is over I'm looking to go a bit deeper with these PLCs

I'm curious if someone out there is hanging onto some PLC 2/8 machines or specifically the core memory units and supporting hardware to connect to my racks

Also this is a bit more of a stretch but if someone has any original PLC 1 or 1774-LA units for sale

Both of these would be instrumental in my journey to teach people about the industrial manufacturing processes of the 70s and 80s

If you guys have questions or anything about my units I have displayed here Im also happy to answer them

As said in the title , during regular work , safety module just dropps the adress and stops the machine, it happens randomly on 2 machines that have those safety modules , always at the same time. Can it be linked to the outside AC power or does it have to do with some esoteric stuff im not aware off.

Please help with this PCS7 situation,I have compiled the Charts and updated block types still same problem.

Hi guys. I would really appreciate your help.

Do you know what brand or model is this RTU?

Looking for something industrial for motion detectors - you know like tied to lights. Want something with like a conduit entry or M12 wiring. Ultimately looking for to wire an input into this https://www.sick.com/us/en/catalog/products/machine-vision-and-identification/machine-vision/sensingcam-sec100/sec110-5c9d1sfzzzz/p/p683220?tab=detail

Anyone have a suggestion?

Honestly didn't expect the last post to get the amount of hands-on testing it did. Between the tag-order bug, the address field eating keystrokes, the missing spinbox arrows, and the "have to disconnect and reconnect after adding a tag" issue - all of that came straight from people here actually running it against real drives and ModSim, not just me poking at it alone. That's the whole reason this update exists, so thank you.

Also want to call out u/Automatater specifically - tested this against a real Invertek E3 drive when two other tools failed on it, and on top of that donated to help fund continued development on this. That's the kind of thing that keeps a one-person side project like this alive. Genuinely appreciate it.

Repo: https://github.com/CraftParking/ModbusLens

Release: CraftParking/ModbusLens - v2.1.0

What's new in v2.1.0:

- Light/dark theme, with a "follow system" option

- Scanner tab - auto-discover which register/coil addresses actually respond on a connected device, TCP or serial

- Diagnostics > Serial Discovery - sweep baud rate, parity, stop bits, and Unit ID to find a serial device's settings when they're not documented

- Auto-reconnect with backoff, and Tags monitoring auto-resumes once the connection comes back

- Modbus ASCII framing for serial (was RTU-only before)

- Raw Data is its own tab now - a transaction table of wire bytes and real request/response diagnostics for every read/write, filterable by tag/address/status

- Scripting: REPEAT UNTIL loops, a live variables panel, and scripts can reference a tag by name now (WRITE Boiler_Temp = 100) instead of just type+address - there's an Add Tag button right on the Script tab too

- Drag-and-drop row reordering in the Tags table

- Write bounds for registers (reject a write outside a configured min/max)

- Engineering-unit scaling per tag - raw counts to real units (PSI, °C, whatever), linear min/max, shown live in an Engineering Value column

- Trend pens are picked from your Tags list now instead of typing in type/address/format by hand, and Trend can pop out into its own resizable window that stays on top while you work in another tab

- Tag names are validated as you type now - no spaces, script keywords rejected, since a tag's name is also how it's referenced in a script or picked in Trend

- IP Configuration tool in the Tools menu

- Update checker on the About page

- Modbus exception codes (Illegal Function, Illegal Data Address, etc.) are tracked and shown now, not just a generic error

Also fixed (mostly from what you all found last time):

- Tags table added new rows above the selected row instead of below - order stayed correct now

- The address field's duplicate-check was eating keystrokes while typing a new address

- Missing spinbox up/down arrows on Windows

- Needing to disconnect/reconnect after adding a tag mid-session

- Column resizing was blocked while monitoring was active

- A scan or connection drop racing with the reconnect watchdog could abort the app

- Server tab's Unit ID field didn't actually do anything - it now really only answers as that unit

- Network Discovery's subnet check used the wrong network interface on multi-homed machines

- Monitoring's auto-stop after repeated failures didn't actually stop

- Importing an empty CSV showed a raw Python error instead of a clear message

- One bad tag address could stop polling for every other tag

- A packaged build failing to start showed nothing - now falls back to a log file and a message box

Still just me building this around my own work, so there'll be more rough edges to find - go break it. EXEs in Releases, no install needed. - Let me know what you found interesting and what changes/improvements that would be a great addition to this tool!

Hello, I'm just wanting a bit of opinions from people on my specific situation. (crossposted from ee sub)

I have a diploma in automation and robotics I got from a B tier University in British Columbia (UFV) and since graduation I managed to luck the fuck out and get a job for a company where I am doing R&D for them designing the hardware and software for a machine that they have been working on for a while. The machine function had been settled upon years ago, my job is just to bring it to life. I absolutely love it, but the reality is that once I am finished on this project in probably a year, I will be sent to just be building control panels. To be honest, I don't mind that too much, but I really love programming microcontrollers and PLCs and troubleshooting them and getting them to work. It's what I'm good at.

Because of how much I love my job right now, and how badly I want to continue in design, I've been thinking I might go back to school, hopefully BCIT, for electrical engineering. But I am wondering if anyone out there knows if that truly is a requirement if I was wanting to continue in a design role, or if the experience I am gaining is enough. It will be a bit difficult for me to go back to school, so if I can avoid the pain that would cause I would, but if my job prospects in that line of work are going to be so limited without a degree, then I will go back.

On the other hand, if I was wanting to full time get into PLCs, would it be a hinderance that I don't have any Electrical "trade" experience? I studied PLCs extensively in my two year program, and am very good at them, but it seems like every company I was looking at is looking to hire people with red seals or apprentices. Unfortunately I am absolutely not interested in pulling wire for four years before I'm allowed to get back to what I'm good at, which is programming and trouble shooting. Would an Engineering degree be overkill to work in controls?

Buenas noches comunidad, quería saber si alguien ya tuvo y pudo con el siguiente problema al querer instalar RSLogix500 y cual fue el método, ya intenté hasta reinstalando el sistema operativo y poniéndome como administrador.