Friday, November 14, 2008

Too much fun

I'm going to have to start taking my camera to class. This week, the project was to hook up a PLC and program it to make a robotic arm grip, rise, swing, extend, rotate, release, and then return to the original position. What fun! And to make things even better, it worked! So, here's how it unfolded.

First, a sketch:











Ah, yes, and let's list the inputs and outputs:











Next, a sequence of events:















After that comes the ladder logic:












Programming it in (and a little troubleshooting, like realizing we didn't put in the work bits) and it was ready to roll. Take a look:



When I got to my car after class, I realized I did have a camera in my brief case so I ran back in and captured the moment. Too bad the guys were gone by then. Anyway, this is way too much fun.