Automated Demo Board

At Doig Corporation I designed, wired and programmed a wall-mounted automation demo panel so our sales team could show customers a working control system without taking them to a live machine. The engineering team uses it daily for proof-of-concept builds and internal testing, and it appears in sales meetings every week. My main design goal was quick reconfiguration: a new sensor or actuator should plug in and run within minutes, with no changes to the panel wiring.

The panel runs on an IDEC MicroSmart PLC, with an IDEC unmanaged Ethernet switch connecting the PLC, the HMI and a programming laptop. Operators use an IDEC color touchscreen HMI mounted on a custom faceplate. The faceplate also has four pilot lights, two pushbuttons and four selector switches, and a separate remote station adds another selector and pushbutton. A SOLA 24 VDC, 10 A power supply feeds the system. ABB miniature circuit breakers protect the incoming 120 VAC, and grounding runs through dedicated ground terminals.

I routed all field wiring through DIN-rail terminal blocks, each labeled by function and PLC address. The wiring runs in slotted duct and is color coded, brown for +24 V and blue for 0 V, so the panel is easy to read and troubleshoot. Separate input groups accept both PNP and NPN 24 V sensors. Sensors connect through M12 quick-disconnect cordsets, and a pneumatic supply with a shutoff valve and push-to-connect fittings drives a range of pneumatic devices.

I wrote the ladder logic in IDEC WindLDR, using internal relays to structure the sequences, and built the operator screens in WindO/I-NV4. The main demo shows a complete cause-and-effect cycle: a SICK sensor detects a part, the PLC energizes a solenoid valve to close a pneumatic gripper, and the HMI and pilot lights show each step as it happens. Swapping a device for a new test or demo now takes minutes instead of 20-30 minutes by the time wires are stripped and power supplies are wired up, and the panel has become the engineering team's standard demo platform.