can i get some ideas related to do student projects on plcs

hi everyone,
i just want some ideas ,,,,i mean different ideas,,,,
to do small small project in my school using plc,,,
i have worked on plcs by doing one project of elevator model,,,,
now i want some more ideas,,,,,like i have a one of creating the traffic control system model using plc , but its simple i think to just blink the lights sequentially,,
do anyone got some ideas in mind?
plc send me ideas
ok
take care
swapnil

A few years back we set up what started to be a small electric train. It grew pretty quickly as we came up with ideas for this and that. A slc500 controlled lights, track switches, RR crossing gates and such. It was continually evolving to include a couple small towns whose street lights came on at dusk, off at dawn.
Pretty easy to start and lots of program practice.

I no longer work at that company but last I heard they were still using it to do some training on.

The college where I went to had a few different models of machinary.
They where all linked to a S5 95U CU (PLC brand doesn't matter that mutch). The things we could play with where:
-Automation for a warehous, different materials (iron, aluminium, orange plastic). Depending on the highed and kind of material it schould go do a different place. We had a little hoist and a two axis vacum arm with encoders on the axis.
Very nice and you can make a programm simple and complex for this machine

-Drilling machine. Two drills with a belt underneath. Deppending on the material, wood or iron, the belt should stop at the right drill. Lower the right drill (after starting the drill afcourse). At the end there was a little slope with an arm that could move over. Metal on the left, iron on the right.

-A machine with two water tanks and a pump. The pump brings the water from the botom tank to the top tank. Inbetween the tanks was a little valve (manualy controlled).
There was a level signal comming from the top tank and we could vari the pump speed.
The idea was to programm a PID for the pump and also some indications on a mimic pannel.

I found it very usefull to see (and feel) how a programm realy worked in reality. It helped me a lot to see the consequence of my programming. Afcourse we also had to programm a safty stop on every machine. Especially with the vacuum part in the first machine whe had a nice job to do.

School project huhn?

I once considered the traffic control system for a project. I was thinking on the lines of defferential clearance to each route depending on the amount of traffic on it. However, I realized its not a very practical thing to do. More money, little use.

How about a small assembly line? jvdv' drilling m/c sounds good.

How about some non-comercial applications, like automating your home or how about something artistic like lighting patterns used to decorate homes during festivals or weddings?

Student Projects on plcs- Traffic Light Control

vishal-s,

Please do not say that Traffic Control is of "little use". How many of us have been frustrated while stopped at a traffic light with zero traffic in the opposite direction as far as you can see?

I think that it is time that someone developed a traffic light control that DOES look at the traffic flow. It should be easy to do, with photoswitch detectors or cameras. If a crossing is empty in one direction, and a vehicle approaches from the perpendicular direction, then the light should turn green with no delay.

I believe the reason that traffic lights remain "dumb" is that most of them are owned by city governments, who could care less about whether you get to work on time!

try going to thelearningpit.com they have some good ideas and training software

Hello everyone,

a little late maybe, Swapnill could have been graduated by this time.

In our company we had a student that developped a PLC-controlled cable-tester. These cables, used for high speed camera control during car-crashtests, have a maximum of 16 wires, and a connector on both sides. The cables were soldered to the connectors by hand, and the test-unit was needed for checking for mistakes on soldering.
Hardware consisted of a PLC with 16 DI and 16 DO, with an OIT.

On an OIT the wiring-specs of the connectors could be entered, and the programm would determine the testsequence. Basic idea: every connection on the connector on the DO side was powered, one at the time. For every step the incoming pattern (DI) was analysed. If the incoming patterns would match the expected pattern based upon the entered connector-specs, the cable would be approved, else rejected.

Kind regards.

Frank