Tips for newbbies

If you are new to RLL (relay ladder logic) programming and are attempting a REALLY big project, I would recommend ordering the ‘SMART BRICK’ from your dealer.

The SMART BRICK has all the possible functions and calculations pre-programmed. That way all you need do is discard the few you wont need. A MUCH faster method when programming a ladder of 1000 rungs or more!

Also, when you have a ladder with 100 to 1000 rungs or more an important safety point here:
As the rungs of a ladder are spaced one foot apart, a ladder over 100 feet MUST have supporting guy wires.
European ladders, however, are METRIC and, therefore have different requirements.

NOTE - These guy wires are, by nature, pre-grounded, and help the technicians in installation and trouble-shooting.

Ladders over 100 feet also MUST have red warning lights spaced at intervals to warn aircraft. The top must have a flashing red light. Your first rung should therefore have a self-resetting timer to flash this light. Generic code for this, in PDF format, is available somewhere on this site.

Some programmers will add ‘elevator code’ for ladders over 250 feet to help speed up a technician’s future trouble-shooting.
Check with ElevMike on this as he has the proprietary elevator code that he will not give you.

When you have finished the last rung, it traditional here in the US to have a ‘topping-off-ceremony’ where a small fir or pine tree is attached to the top rung.
This being close to Christmas, I personally would add more flashing timers to drive lights on the tree – just my thoughts here.

Some ladder programmers, who shall remain nameless to prevent embarrassing myself, like to boast about how high their ladders are. They tend to insert NOPs into their code.

The NOPs are quite useless, as is this post.

Merry Christmas ya'll

LOL

Siemens makes a SMART brick also. It's programmed with "STEP" ladders.

I see the beer is flowing well tonight....I found another bottle of Lairds Applejack in my truck this evening, so I am working hard at putting a large dent in it...More ice, housewench, and be quick about it...I just love staying in hotels....
David

Post editted out, I decided it was too lame.

BTW, old standard for FAA lighting of ladder logic was 200', but low flying planes got tangled in the rungs.

regards.....casey

I don't get the In's and out's of this joke.

It is very likely you need another cold one...

It's not the ins and outs. it's the I/O's.

Should we be paid by the rung, of by the foot (of printout)?

1100011 bottles of MGD (or Miller Lite, Bud for Rube) on the wall, 1100011 bottles of beer............

Remember, a 4 foot ladder logic costs $49.95, and a six foot is, he he, a little higher

belch.....casey

wait, I'm not drinking beer, I got into the wife's Amaretto...

Let's not forget OSHA...

Actual OSHA requirements for ladder usage:

1926.1053(a):

• General. The following requirements apply to all ladders as indicated, including job-made ladders.

1926.1053(a)(2):

• Ladder rungs and steps shall be parallel, level, and uniformly spaced when the ladder is in position for use.

1926.1053(a)(7):

• Ladders shall not be tied or fastened together to provide longer sections unless they are specifically designed for such use.

1926.1053(a)(9):

• When splicing is required to obtain a given length of side rail, the resulting side rail must be at least equivalent in strength to a one-piece side rail made of the same material.

1926.1053(b)(4):

• Ladders shall be used only for the purpose for which they were designed.

1926.1053(b)(13):

• The top or top rung of a ladder shall not be used for a step.

1926.1053(b)(15):

• Ladders shall be inspected by a competent person for visible defects on a periodic basis and after any occurrence that could affect their safe use.

1926.1053(b)(19):

• Single-rail ladders shall not be used.

beerchug

-Eric

Old McBradley had some code, I/O I/O O, with a NOP NOP here, and a NOP NOP there.....

Sorry, PUI!

Posting Under thr Influence

Amaretto is a sipping liquore (not the way I drink it(!

Good time to review this thread HERE

or this one HERE

gonna sleep in tomorrow morning...casey

Re: Let's not forget OSHA...

Ladders shall be used only for the purpose for which they were designed. I also use my elevator programs for defibulators...

1926.1053(b)(13):
The top or top rung of a ladder shall not be used for a step. I quess it a NOP then..

1926.1053(b)(19):
Single-rail ladders shall not be used.

We'll I guess that puts out AD in conflict with OSHA!! Since there's only ONE rail on the left....

Late last night I had a bout of insomnia, so in the wee hours of the morning, I caught up on some posts on PLCs.net. I got a charge out of Ron's post and some of the follow-ups on the new "Smart Brick" ladder unit.

Eventually I turned the PC off and went on to cruise the UHF TV broadcast channels (out here in cow-corn country there's no cablevision.) I was about to skip the Home Shopping Network (HSN) channel because I'm outside their area and I get only really bad, snowy video, but paused when I heard HSN pitching a new "unitary ladder system".

Here I thought "unitary" was some silly academic term for who knows what in PLCs. But incredibly, HSN was selling Ronco's unitary version of Rod's "Smart Brick", the Ronco Ladder-o-matic.

Now, the video was so bad I couldn't make out anything on the screen, but I caught all the description of it over the audio. Pretty clever, the Ladder-o-matic combines step ladders (for sequencers) with extension ladders (for Remote I/O), and it all just snaps together, complete with latches and safety interlocks in "one easy motion". Neat huh?

They named a bunch of ways to use it, like painting ( I was at Mitsubishi recently on some control issues on their paint line) and some I'd never even heard of, like gutters (maybe some food or pharmaceutical CIP app?)

I couldn't believe that it's so sophisticated, they said it can even handle "uneven grounds", with some sort of "leveler" (galvanic isolation ? ? No cheapie I/O for Ronco, huh?)

But wait, there's more . . . .

This ladder box is so "user-friendly" that the entire instruction set fits on the front and back of 1 sheet of paper, illustrated at that. No 8Mb pdf instruction manuals for Ronco. One sheet does it.

And its safety approvals are right on a sticker on one the rails (strange place to put safety approvals, but hey, you can't miss it while you're dropping those contacts and coils onto the worksheet, huh?)

You know how Home Shopping Network has ladies who pitch the stuff. Well, this gal must have been a little confused, talking about how a ladder-o-matic can take a 250 pound "load", but who'd expect a Home Shopping Network lady to understand circuit loading? Dude, it's like amps, not pounds.

Initially they sort of beat around the bush saying, "It's a great work platform", but they didn't name the O/S. Later on they said "works great for Windows" which sort of gave it away. At least it's not Linux.

There are some gray areas - there's some deal about how the number of rungs depends on how you put it together, but anyone who's ever programmed a PLC would understand that the size of the program depends on what you do with it.

But wait, there's more . . .

If I were able to order one right then, they'd add in, for free, the "wall standoff bracket", (normally $29.95) which I figure is some way of mounting it to the subpanel.

I know a lot of guys from outside the US read these posts, so for those of you who aren't familiar with American TV, Ronco is an long time, established vendor, through the medium of late night TV advertising, of incredibly clever household tools. Their most famous product is the "Vegi-matic that slices and dices; you can slice a whole can of prepared meat at one time! Isn't that amazing?"

Apparently Ronco is setting their sights on the industrial market with this ladder-o-matic.

It wouldn't surprise me if Automation Direct weren't shaking in their boots at Ronco's system price tag of only $199, (plus shipping and handling of course) which includes everything you'll ever need! Isn't that incredible?.

For some reason, HSN only had 39 of these and they were all snapped up before I could get through on the phone to order one. I tried HSN's web site, but couldn't find mention of it.
I'll be up tonight on a caffeine kick looking for a ladder-o-matic on HSN.

Who'd of thought Ronco would some day be a player in the PLC market ? ? ?

Dan

danw said:

It wouldn't surprise me if Automation Direct weren't shaking in their boots at Ronco's system price tag of only $199, (plus shipping and handling of course) which includes everything you'll ever need!

Click to expand...

But wasn't there a price cut if you call within the next 10 minutes??

Or something like "Only 24 easy payments of $8.30"

Or:
What would you expect to pay for a machine like this???

$20,000.00?
$10,000.00?
$5,000.00?
$1,000.00?
$500.00?
$200.00?

Availible today for this one-time only price of:
$199.00


I'm sure there was a "allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery" line in there somewhere.
There's gotta be a catch! It sounds too good to be true!

NO FAIR!!!

I fail to see the humor in some of you pointing out the fact that you are partaking in the consumption of a beverage that may contain alcohol !!

I find no joy in the fact that people may be enjoying themselves at 4:00 AM, while I sit here stone sober. I have 11 hours and 30 minutes to go.

Okay it is off to work.

But first, can some of you more sober ones help me with a little problem?

I was going out to the plant floor to give a test to some of my ladder logic rungs on the equipment. I like testing ladders on the equipment so I can see and track all the outside influences that do not occur when a ladder that is set up on the testbench. I do install flashers at the first rung and the last, sometimes they are also scattered throughout the rungs but I was unaware the actual mandates to their proper location.

On to my problem:
While I was in the process of installing my ladder I hopped on a man-lift to make sure the final rung flasher was pulses at the desired interval. NOTICE: I never actually use my ladder logic myself, I used a man-lift or boom to test from. Whilst I was rising up the ladder and inspecting the rungs I noticed the approval stickers on the man-lift from all of the agencies that setup guidelines for this type of equipment. Looking over at my ladder I noticed no such ratings or disclaimers, much less any warning about not using the top rung.

I never gave any of this a second thought until now! How do you guys handle the liability issues? Explaining this to management here is impossible. Everytime I even mention the word logic, they either run away screaming or go into complete mental shut-down and give the deer-in-the-headlights look. We had to cart one off the other day with brain freeze (he was completely impaired and ranting about wanting more work completed on schedule)

So how do you handle the liability issues?

Also; can someone explain to me:
When ladder code is first laid out on the that magical black-box thingy that we carry around to look important. (The one with solitaire on it) We start at the top rung, do we not? If this is the case, as I believe it to be, how is it that no matter what the length of code is, the last rung is always the highest point when erected in the field? Should this point not be at the bottom thus making both risers/rails at ground potential and equal? So putting my flasher at the last rung, which is really the bottom when still in the black-box, but which becomes the top when erected in the field , become null and void due to the fact that both risers being of equal voltage potential negate the possibility of the flasher working at all! Again I have not been drinking yet! How is it also, that Elevmike can get away with calling it ladder logic when he uses an automatic lift mechanism like an elevator? These question and others are only a few that need to be answered before this show is through. Maybe now that starts to explain why there was a quick glimpse of a ladder on the Twi-light zone.

New warning labels included with the latest version of RSLogix...

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beerchug

-Eric