Smithers
- 213
- 63
Hey all.
I am starting this thread to document the journey of a huge heady nerdy project I have just jumped into. I decided to build a PLC driven relay rack to control my future garage and grow space! I have done electrical panel building and machine troubleshooting as a day job a long time, never build my own unit for my own uses. I want to expand my electrical/software skills and further my career, so why not learn ladder logic and industrial PLC. After turning it on, in minutes I have running programs that would have taken me hours in Arduino. This is going to be amazing for me. I'm forever going to be tinkering to make this thing smarter. I have SO much to learn, but this thing is gonna be the balls. With another $400 upgrade it'll have it's own HDMI control screen, and could text me alerts and push data and graphs to my phone. Gonna take me years to fully understand how to use it all... Expensive option, yet so so easy in comparison to how I've tinkered in the past.
I already owned 75% of what's in the pictures of the rack either from my prior jobs, or leftover parts from gig work building sfx systems. The big purchase last weekend was the Productivity1K PLC and wire, sensors (about $700). I started building the panel yesterday morning in a rack tray, and designed as I went. It's at the point I can turn it on and connect to my PC. It'll be changing around a bit for sure, neatened up, there's more features to add. The input/output wiring isn't done. Modbus sensors for Temp/Hum/Co2 arrived today but need connections soldered, and for me to learn a bit about that modbus rtu, and wire up some cat5e to get my data.
Don't try this at home folks! It's easy to do this wrong, and I expect a certain degree of failure in exchange for my efforts of growth. Call me crazy, this is half for career building, but in the future hopefully this controller will be something wicked.
My garage grow build project is hitting a delay before it's gotten started, another week or two before progress on that front. Too much stuff in there, need a storage unit for cleanout, soon. Soon.
Controller Priorities:
Get SCD30 temp/hum/co2 sensor network working
Get data from sensors logged to sd card, get export graphing to work
Wire remaining panel I/O
Sample the lighting controller output signal to A/C input card for Night/Day schedule reference
Start writing code for keeping schedules and getting hu, dehu, heaters, all that stuff to work based on sensors
Muddy after that but a million ideas
I am starting this thread to document the journey of a huge heady nerdy project I have just jumped into. I decided to build a PLC driven relay rack to control my future garage and grow space! I have done electrical panel building and machine troubleshooting as a day job a long time, never build my own unit for my own uses. I want to expand my electrical/software skills and further my career, so why not learn ladder logic and industrial PLC. After turning it on, in minutes I have running programs that would have taken me hours in Arduino. This is going to be amazing for me. I'm forever going to be tinkering to make this thing smarter. I have SO much to learn, but this thing is gonna be the balls. With another $400 upgrade it'll have it's own HDMI control screen, and could text me alerts and push data and graphs to my phone. Gonna take me years to fully understand how to use it all... Expensive option, yet so so easy in comparison to how I've tinkered in the past.
I already owned 75% of what's in the pictures of the rack either from my prior jobs, or leftover parts from gig work building sfx systems. The big purchase last weekend was the Productivity1K PLC and wire, sensors (about $700). I started building the panel yesterday morning in a rack tray, and designed as I went. It's at the point I can turn it on and connect to my PC. It'll be changing around a bit for sure, neatened up, there's more features to add. The input/output wiring isn't done. Modbus sensors for Temp/Hum/Co2 arrived today but need connections soldered, and for me to learn a bit about that modbus rtu, and wire up some cat5e to get my data.
Don't try this at home folks! It's easy to do this wrong, and I expect a certain degree of failure in exchange for my efforts of growth. Call me crazy, this is half for career building, but in the future hopefully this controller will be something wicked.
My garage grow build project is hitting a delay before it's gotten started, another week or two before progress on that front. Too much stuff in there, need a storage unit for cleanout, soon. Soon.
Controller Priorities:
Get SCD30 temp/hum/co2 sensor network working
Get data from sensors logged to sd card, get export graphing to work
Wire remaining panel I/O
Sample the lighting controller output signal to A/C input card for Night/Day schedule reference
Start writing code for keeping schedules and getting hu, dehu, heaters, all that stuff to work based on sensors
Muddy after that but a million ideas