Not so simple in a PLC: What day is it today?

I was browsing reddit.com/r/plc and encountered this picture with the title:

Everything in the automation industry.

I loved this picture and I was not the only one. People on Reddit loved it. This meme is a real-life metaphor to which many can relate to.

Among comments like:

"We don't make sense, we make car parts"

“The truth. In a single meme.”

A particular comment by user yellekc has caught my eye.

“Today I showed my coworker how to get the day of the week in ControlLogix, I nearly lost it. A billion-dollar company needs like a 15 rung subroutine to tell me it's Friday on my $5k controller.

I think it is a sample ACD file in any Studio5000 install.

Take a look at it.

You should read the comments, it has an "easy algorithm" suitable for "mental calculation."

I honestly think I'm getting trolled by Rockwell. This can't be the way to do it.” [source].

How to do it in a PLC? You can follow a complicated tutorial [here], read auxiliary area memory cells A351 (what in the bloody hell is that?) … Or use the power of a modern programming language!

And I’m like “I can do that”.

How to get the day of the week on a TwinCAT3 PLC? With a little help of Inxton and C#? 😊

This is how you get the day of the week in C#.

var dayOfTheWeek = DateTime.Today.DayOfWeek; 
 
Console.WriteLine(dayOfTheWeek); 

You can even run this code online https://dotnetfiddle.net/pffvZh.

I created a new PLC project from the template https://github.com/Inxton/template.core.

Add a variable DayOfTheWeek , run the builder, and write this code.

That’s it.

Run this code on Monday to get the same result 😉

Mondays are not that bad. But if I had to deal with silly problems every day, I would eventually hate them too.

Try Inxton to have better Mondays 😊

Tags: Weekly Thoughts