PLC Components – Integrating PLCs with Other Modules
Software and hardware have a symbiotic relationship. Without hardware, software is useless, and vice versa. A key component of computer science is hardware engineering, and as most automation programmers know, hardware is a major factor in automation machinery. In other words, you cannot have a quality machine without quality hardware and software.
In terms of hardware, a PLC is a series of integrated modules that take in data and provide some type of output. To do this, PLCs utilize many different components, such as switches, sensors, motor drives, and safety modules, that all work in unison to control a machine. The key to these systems is the PLC. However, many inexperienced automation engineers do not fully understand what a PLC is, how to integrate external modules, and so on.
Knowing what a component does and how to integrate a module into a PLC system is vital to successful engineering. Even if a person is a...
