Programmable Logic Controllers, PLCs, Reliability.

PLCs are not about all the long list that gets hauled out about their speed and ease of programming and all the issues of "how they work". PLCs are about reliability. PLCs are expensive... for reasons that many are too late in understanding.

You can make your own PLC if you work out how to get the hardware and ecosystem up to or better than the standards for existing PLC reliability. Most will never understand what this requires until they fail. Nor will they have the self awareness to get past their own flaws and look outwards (and maybe even bypass failure?).

Am I challenging you? Yes. Am I challenging you to "self sufficiency" or "rugged individualism"? Look at how ecosystem plays to reliability and then ecosystems like the open source and maker movement and then decide.

Are PLC use cases what is driving the massive reduction of costs in underpinnings of their function?  Spoiler: It is the glass screen in your pocket, and the search bar everywhere.

"Come now, let us reason together". You want to build one? Yes you do! *grin* Let's see how.

New Devices – Just Give us the Pins and APIs

Recently blogged about the renaissance of the DIY electronics pathway.

http://albertputnam.blogspot.com/2013/12/renaissance-of-diy-electronics-store.html

Now one can find modules for almost any function - at near instant mail order and even at a local retail outlet.

That speaks to a message that needs to get to the developers of new chips and modules for connectivity and core or ancillary functions. The release of such modules often involves a CPK (programmers kit) to the chip or module API – fair enough. The supplier company often releases a development kit - which has a reference design board, their module, a power supply and various cables, and a DVD or CD with the CPK (or more lately a slip of paper or QR barcode code with a website link to a CPK download *grin*)

The new paradigms of modules at retail screams out to stop building/providing hardware development kit boards - with UARTs and LEDs and converters and drivers power connectors and all such do dads, plus saying nothing of CAD and revisions for a reference design.

Suppliers - just put your chip or module on a carrier with pins (at human scale with 0.1” or 2mm spacing). Make your reference designs utilize other modules. Refer to said modules specifically if you like.

The only things the developers add are

A. wire interconnects between modules (and the developer at the end gets to choose which modules to use). There is no harm in a reference /design/, just do not make it the defacto only thing the developer can use as hardware.

B. code interconnects between module APIs.

The work in development becomes the interconnection for pre-existing functional blocks with accessible API and pinouts. There are some nice USB (and other protocol and wireless) bridges developers could really go to town with given accessible pins. This is to say nothing of a fair bunch of embeddable microcontrollers. Get humans something to get humanly started. Then the design wins will come.

Renaissance of the DIY Electronics Store.

Most who are old enough remember when Radio Shack

had walls of electronics and hardware components for DIY

The dawn of the Twenty First Century seemed to bode poorly for such retail. Catalog companies like Jameco and MPJA, and even the majors like Digikey and Mouser  became the source of choice for DIY.

Online sales outlets then saw growth. Some above morphed to online. And many project oriented experimenters (“hackers”, “makers” – what have you) moved to coordination with such online entities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adafruit_Industries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkfun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_(magazine)

And there are closely allied entities (physical or conceptual DIY)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makerbot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprap

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructables

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cutter

And one can get practically anything from Amazon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com

And well executed online hardware thrives in forms like McMaster-Carr   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMaster-Carr

But the retail store is not dead... Sometimes as a hybrid works - like fasteners from Fastenal   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastenal

And Home Depot and Walmart are developing online presence to leverage their retail…

But getting back to the point. DIY modules are now back on the walls at Radio Shack. And they are popping up else where. There is a whole section at Microcenter in Cambridge for such. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Center

CompUSA and Fry’s are similar (and there are some locals still holding on like You-Do-It in Waltham).

Might not be long before craft supply and home improvement get on the band wagon? And there are always players like Walmart which might take up the banner. One wonders if such a game change could save Kmart/Sears?