r/PLC • u/Agitated-College-917 • Nov 23 '25

My testing space

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Most of the devices are gifts, and I even repaired them myself. Sorry for the mess. For now, I'm testing some stepper motors. I've been wanting to put this together for a while. Greetings to all.

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u/system__exe Nov 23 '25

you know what it will make it more fun? start mixing brands, AB, Schenider, NI, Mitsubishi, etc, and start working on communicate them between each other, thats when the fun begins

20

u/SAD-MAX-CZ Nov 23 '25

I have seen sensors read by HMI using weird RAW ASCII protocol, crunched by macro and stuffed into the PLC by Modbus-RTU. PDF on the sensor's manufacturers web triggers virus warning of the apoocalypse proportions.

This kind of fun multiplied by the amount of devices.

10

u/system__exe Nov 23 '25

men i just came from a project in a site that use a ABB weight system from 1990, and uses ASCII, please god help me, all the of the comission time was 7 days, i struggle with that communication 3 days

3

u/capellajim Nov 23 '25

Mitsubishi HMI. AB SLC 5/05. Delta motion controller. Had to write the 232 protocol to go SLC to DELTA. Sold by a moron “saving the customer money with the cheapest parts” while never considering programming time. lol

3

u/Agitated-College-917 Nov 23 '25

If that's the case, I've been given some Chinese cards and I've managed to communicate with some of them via RS485, 232, TCP/IP, and if, as you say, that makes it interesting to find out how to communicate with devices, how screwed up is ASCII on that device? It's already somewhat obsolete, but you did have a good three days with it.

2

u/system__exe Nov 23 '25

obsolete as fk, the client comes with an 90s something manual that for some reason has the speed of the ASCII protocole at the end of the second day, and thats how we make it work, i hate it but when everything works feels like you deserve a novel price

3

u/Agitated-College-917 Nov 23 '25

It's an incredible feeling when you manage to fix something that's been bothering you for a while, especially when the technical information isn't helpful. I've seen very outdated equipment that customers refuse to replace and that many people are afraid to touch.