Industrial Automation With PLC and SCADA

Basics about PLC and SCADA

Today's world is focused on automation. Without automation any industry can merely run smoothly and give out desired output and production rate.Industrial automation is a great choice to go in for a bright future specially for electrical, electronics and communication, electronics and instrumentation and mechanical branches.

If want to know basics about PLC and SCADA quickly, then you are at right place. So without wasting any time let's begin.

PLC: Programmable Logic Controller  

 Normal branded PLC costs 20000-25000/-

Advanced version of PLC is called DMC.

Some Uses of Industrial Automation:

• Oil and Gas industry
• Power sector
• Wind energy plants
• Paper industry
• Cement Industry
• Steel plants
• Plastic Industry
• Bottle filling plant
• Wafers packing plant
• and many more

 Automation:

Automation is basically a delegation of human control function to control technical equipment

or

It is the use of control system to increase productivity.

Need of  Automation:

• Time saving
• Accuracy
• Increase Productivity

Automation Tools:

• Relay
• Contactor
• HMI: Human machine interface
• SCADA
• PLC
• DCS: Distributed control System

Momentry Switch:

There are two types of momentry tools used in industrial automation:-

1. NO switch: Normally open and green in color
2. NC switch: Normally Closed and red in color

RELAY:

Relay is an electrical single phase switching device.

The power applied to its coil generates a magnetic field that operates the switch. The operating voltage of its coil may be different from the load voltage.

• Single phase
• DC motor
• Light load

CONTACTOR:

It is same as RELAY but

• Heavy load
• 3 phase
• multipole
• single throw
• operates in NO configuration

Drawbacks of Contactor and RELAY:

• Bulky Panels
• Complex wiring
• Longer Project times
• Difficult maintenance and trouble shooting

Circuit Breaker:

1. MCB: Miniature Circuit Breaker.
   Two types
   1.Single Pole
   2.Double Pole
2. MCCB: Molded Case Circuit Breaker.Used for 3 phase suply.
   Two types
   1.3 pole
   2. 4 pole
3. ELCB: Earth Leakage Circuit breaker
   % pole for earth and neutral.
4. OLR: Thermal Overload Relay
5. MPCP: Motor protector Circuit protector
   Act as dual starter.
6. VFD: Variable frequency drive.
   1.Control speed and torque
   2.varies frequencies and amplifies the AC waveform being delivered to the motor
   3. save money in electricity
   4.Soft start and stop

PLC:

Programmable Logic Controller

operates at 24 V DC supply

Contains EEPROM(Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) 

major PLCs used

• Allen Bradly(US)
• Delta(China)
• Siemens(Germany)
• OMRON(Japan)

Types:

1. Fixed PLC
2. Modular PLC

Programming language used:

Ladder Diagram

Software used for programming:

• RSLinx Classic (communication software between CPU and PLC)
• RS Emulate 500
• RS Losix micro (ladder program is made here)

SCADA:

Supervisory Control and Data acquisition system

Features:

•  Dynamic Representation
• Alarms
• Recipe
• Device Connectivity
• and many more

Industrial Automation is a very vast field and PLC and SCADA are part of it and it holds a bright future and boom in  INDIA specially.