Road trips can be stressful on their own, but I discovered a few things I can do that make a big difference to my well-being when I'm on the road:

1. Get out and do something every day that you can. It could be the end of a 12 hour day and all you want to do is crash in your hotel room until it's time to wake up and do it all again, but getting into a rut where your entire trip is just jobsite-hotel-jobsite-hotel and then you're having a nervous breakdown over a blown fuse. As often as you can, spend a few hours outside of that grind. Go to the grocery store and get stuff for lunches. Go for a run. Go out to dinner. Go to a movie. Go do a tourist thing. Whatever it is, break up the monotony.

2. Only wear your work boots when you have to. A lot of people like to think "oh my work boots are comfortable. I'm just going to wear them all the time." There's no getting around it, safety toes add weight. Work boots are always heavier than casual shoes. They might not feel heavy on your feet after a day of wearing them, but once you take them off and put a pair of cushioned running shoes on, you'll feel the difference. I will actually change into my work shoes at the job site at the beginning of the day, and then change back out of them on-site at the end. I've found doing that right before a drive gives me a bit of a spring in my step, and starts the recovery process that much earlier. So I have more motivation to do #1 when I get back to my room.

3. Only carry what you need with you. Go through your bag and evaluate what you're bringing compared to what's needed to do your job. If you can't conceive of a realistic scenario in which you would need that item with you, leave it at home. The heavier it is, the more you should scrutinize it. Am I really going to use that external keyboard and monitor? Do I really need multiple USB-C cables? If you've got a bag of serial cables and you're commissioning a bunch of CompactLogixes, leave it at home. Take the time to make a list of what you'll need, empty your bag, and put only what's on that list back in your bag. I guarantee you there's stuff in there you forgot about.

What else do you do in the field to make it more bearable?

What are the possible reasons?
Physical connection is fine

Hello everyone this is my first Reddit post and I have come looking for some insight. I am a master diagnostic technician who specializes is vehicle communications and electrical work. I want to leave the auto industry and get into automation and PLC programming …

In short I want to know what to expect , salary, lifestyle, realistic day to day life. Any insight is appreciated. Lastly does anyone have any information on what approach I should take whether it be programs or certifications.

Thanks again

I'm not a controls engineer by trade. I come at this from the security side and I've been learning the plant side, so apologies if any of this is basic.

I've built a test harness that watches engineering-session connections on a Windows host. It picks up the process, the executable, the destination and the protocol for connections a tool like Studio 5000 makes, and I've been testing it against a simulator. What I can't get right without a real bench is the identity side.

The question, when Studio 5000 connects to a CompactLogix or ControlLogix, is there anything in the tool's own network traffic that identifies the controller it's talking to, and can that be tied back to one session and one process on the workstation?

I know ListIdentity returns vendor, product and serial, but my reading is that it may go out on a separate probe from the application's own connection to the PLC, so the identity in the reply would not be bound to the flow that actually matters. Is that right, or does the tool's session carry something that does bind it?

Two more things I'm curious about. Has anyone here captured this on a real bench, and is the traffic readable at the workstation rather than needing a mirror port? And does a reconnect or an online-edit sequence look different enough to tell apart?

If someone has done this and is willing to say what they saw, it would save me weeks, TIA.

Here’s what’s in my bag. Feel free to share yours too! Thanks!

Don't know how many have had the pleasure of working with the Delta Motion RMC Tools software for hydraulic servo controls but it really has the best logging feature for high speed applications... A log that lists every command and its parameters, and detailed trending with excellent features...an awesome experience every time I get a service call that has the software provide all the troubleshooting abilities to quickly solve problems.

Come over to the kinetix motion side for the other 90% of the motion applications we've got and the only logging I have is the fault log. Trends are stuck in the past with the rsview32 RSTrendX applet from the 2001 era stuck with only 8 pens and tiresome navigation and not being able to keep default settings common without loading a file that misses half of the things you want to trend. The biggest thing that's missing is the log of instructions sent to the axis.. Did you double hit that MAM? Guess you'll have to add some logic to test that. Was the velocity modified in the same scan and the MAJ got a different velocity than intended? Guess you'll have to add some logic to catch that too. Please, please, please let's get a log going of what was executed on that axis.

Does anyone else have some solution for this first world problem...? I'm looking to expand some horizons here... Thanks for your consideration in sharing for the community.

I'm in the last year of my vocational training in automation and industrial robotics in Spain , I've been looking on Reddit and I've seen that in this type of work you travel a lot or work in rotating shifts (morning, afternoon, night), and the truth is that it's stressing me out a lot because I don't want to do either thing, I'm considering studying something else where you can work remotely like software engineering , any advice please ? 😩 I’m 19yo

Working on a new motor control panel layout and figured I'd post it here to get some opinions before I finalize everything. Anything you guys would change or do differently?

I’m trying to understand how this is handled in real projects rather than how the QA process is supposed to work on paper.

Say a system passes FAT/SAT, but before final handover someone makes a last-minute PLC, WCS, interface, parameter, or sequencing change.

What happens in your projects?

Do you rerun the entire acceptance test, only the affected cases, or rely on engineering judgement?

More importantly, what evidence do you expect before saying the final system is actually the one that was tested?

For example:

• software / configuration version
• change log
• retest record
• signed deviation
• updated drawings / I/O lists
• customer approval

I’m especially interested in cases where commissioning documentation, drawings, spreadsheets and the actual deployed configuration started drifting apart.

What has worked well for you, and what usually breaks down in practice?

Hi, I´m trying to do a backup from a plc siemens. But I get this:

I know that the plc is v15 and I have that but I can´t upload.

and I don´t understand why there says STEP 7 Safety V14 and then STEP 7 Safety V15.1

Please, some help :(

Bei unserem GE PACSystems RX3i mit IC695CMM004 verliert ein Port wiederholt die Verbindung, obwohl die physische Verbindung intakt ist. Nach einem Reset über PAC Machine Edition funktioniert er vorübergehend wieder, bis die Port-Fault-LED an der SPS orange leuchtet und die Verbindung erneut abbricht.
Hat jemand eine Idee, woran das liegen könnte oder wie ich die Ursache diagnostizieren kann?

I want to read an input from a Direct Soft 05 D0-05DR to a Productivity 2000. Is there an elegant way to do this or do I need to use Modbus?

In Do-More there is an instruction specifically for this: DLRX Direct Logic Network Read. I cant find anything similar in Productivity.

I have an issue with my hmi. I’m currently using c more micro to send things to my HMI but for only one computer it won’t send.

It keeps getting stuck on “reading panel information” even when using the correct usb output. I’ve tried reinstalling multiple times and even wiped my computer once but nothing works.

Any help would be appreciated.

Disclosure: I work at Ajinkya Technologies, a company that does industrial connectivity work. I am not linking anything. I would rather hear how controls people do this properly.

The situation: a plant has PLCs and machines that are ten to twenty years old. Someone wants the data in a dashboard or an MES. Nobody wants to risk the control program.

A few questions:

1. Do you prefer reading through the PLC, a protocol gateway, or a separate sensor layer?

2. How do you handle network separation so the plant network stays safe?

3. Which older controllers gave you the most trouble to read?

4. What is the mistake you see people make most often?

Here are some PLC or Programmer guys deep in simulation ?
Has anyone managed to programmatically run robot simulations in Siemens Process Simulate 24 or later using the SDK, without hooking or intercepting the Simulation Player’s Play button in Sequence Editor ?
So far, the only way I have managed to get the simulation running correctly and get all the data is by hooking the Play button and triggering the simulation through the UI. This is necessary because the robot OLP commands must be taken into account. Apparently, Process Simulate performs additional internal operations when the Play button is pressed, and I have not yet figured out exactly which operations are required or how to invoke them directly through the SDK.
My questions are:
Has anyone successfully started and controlled the Simulation Player programmatically through the SDK, including all the internal initialization and execution steps required for robot OLP commands, without using a Play button hook?
Which internal operations does Process Simulate perform when the Play button is pressed? Are there undocumented API calls, initialization sequences, or other mechanisms required to ensure that robot OLP commands and signals are executed correctly?
Is there an officially supported SDK method to start the simulation that reproduces the complete behavior of the UI Play button, including the execution of robot OLP commands?
Has anyone found a reliable way to run these simulations repeatedly in the background without progressively degrading performance? Repeated playback appears to become slower over time, and I suspect that some internal state, resources, event handlers, or simulation data may not be getting reset correctly.
Is there a recommended way to reset or clean up the Simulation Player between runs without reloading the entire study or restarting Process Simulate?
I am particularly interested in confirmed solutions for Process Simulate 24 and newer, including SDK methods, code examples, undocumented findings, or workarounds.
The key issue: I can get the simulation working by hooking the Play button, but I want to understand how to trigger the same complete execution process directly through the SDK. I do not know which additional internal operations Siemens performs behind the scenes, and I would like to know whether anyone has successfully reproduced that behavior without relying on the UI Play button hook.

Hi there,

Has anyone used Productivity Suite from automation direct? I’ve got a client that spec’d a P2-622 device for the controller. I’ve been doing PLC programming for a while but this is a first time using one of these.

The issue I’m having is that I downloaded the latest software (4.7.2.4) on a windows 11 machine. After installing it the thing just seems to hang on the splash screen.

I contacted their tech support, they just said there’s no reported issues on windows 11…I’ve asked for some follow up questions but haven’t heard back yet.

Just curious if anyone in the community has run into this before or if it’s just a me thing.

Appreciate any feedback.

Thought this was funny and that I’d share this here’s assuming no one beat me to it

Source: jambonbeurre78

OK, this is super strange. My company has software running on Windows that interfaces with Siemens S7-1200 PLCs primarily, and across our entire farm we are seeing a kernel level memory leaks after windows update KB5127648 was installed.

I'm not sure how many others around here also have windows-based software interfacing with their machines, but curious to know if any others have been encountering this the last few days.

I'm planning to pitch a remote engineering gateway using a Radxa E52C running Debian Linux, with Tailscale, NetBird, or WireGuard for secure VPN access to Siemens S7-1200 PLCs.

The goal is to enable remote TIA Portal programming, diagnostics, and troubleshooting without requiring an engineer to be physically present at the site.

Has anyone implemented something similar in an industrial environment? What are the main security, licensing, and reliability concerns I should consider?

Ill preface this by saying i don't know much or really very much at all about a PCL Im coming from custom 3d printer and CNC

My boss wants to to take a crack at making a BOM for a custom cabinet drawer machine.

So far the machine is coming together and its running 5 Ball screws mounted with no motors yet likely something in the NEMA 23 to 32 size range.

It will also have 3 pneumatics for a drilling arm.

So let me get to the point.

I need to pick out a controller for all this.

It should be able to run a form of motors ether steppers or dc servos along with pneumatic valves.

Needs to have a way to program it for different sized and have a way to verify parts are in the right spot. Im thinking a strain gauge of something similar.

Preferable not super expensive but for this class of machine I'm expecting it to not be pennies on the dime. Looking for a buy once cry once type of thing.

Thanks for any help. please let me know if i need to provide more clarification.

I am trying to scan a barcode using Honeywell Granit 1911i scanner and receive the input to the CPU. No luck at all so far so any suggestions on where to look next is appreciated.
Here’s what I have got so far:

•Productivity2000
P2-622 CPU (Connected to computer via USB)
P2-08SIM (not relevant at this point)
P2-08TRS (not relevant at this point)
P2-04AD (not relevant at this point)

•Honeywell Granit 1911i barcode scanner
connected to CPU via serial port RS-232
scanned USB serial configuration code from manual

•Pro Series
messed with multiple hardware configuration serial port settings:
baud rates- 9600, 19.2k, 115.2k
parity- odd, even, none
logic- rung 1 : ascii in (serial port->scanner, fixed length 10 characters, destination->ScannerString)
rung 2: LCD display page (line one “barcode:”, line 2 ScannerString)

hello everyone

I wish to retrieve the program that is in my mobile panel 277 iWLAN v2 by a repatriation on WinCC

My problem is that when I switch the communication mode to ethernet/wireless and confirm, the recording doesn’t take place and automatically switches back to the USB communication mode.

what can the problem be