Notes and learnings about industrial automation.
2026-03-24
Instrumentation
From 0–20 mV to 4–20 mA: Design and Simulation of an Analog Transmitter
A hands-on journey through the design of an analog transmitter that converts 0–20 mV into 0–10 V and 4–20 mA using filtering, amplification, scaling, and voltage-to-current conversion.
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2026-03-09
Automation
Generic FIFO/LIFO Buffer for Siemens S7-1500
Technical analysis of a generic FIFO/LIFO library for Siemens S7-1500 in TIA Portal using SCL. Supports generic payloads through VARIANT and serialization.
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2026-02-16
Automation
The square law as an interception problem (ODEs, control and spacetime) - Part II
Continuization and an intuitive explanation of the square law: ODEs, control, norms, reachable sets, causal cones and Hamilton–Jacobi, with rendered LaTeX.
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2026-02-12
Automation
The Square Rule as a Reachability Problem (and Inequalities) - Part I
Demystifying the square rule in chess: from visual trick to reachability in graphs, the L∞ metric, and inequalities in discrete space-time.
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2026-02-09
Automation
Using Git with TIA Portal without losing your mind — introducing TiaGitExporter
A tool to export TIA Portal projects into a deterministic, Git-friendly XML structure using Openness — so Git stops screaming for no reason.
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2026-01-31
Automation
Object-oriented design in PLCs (TIA Portal) — without pretending they are C#
A practical, honest mapping of OOP design principles to Siemens TIA Portal using FBs, UDT interfaces, composition, and stateless FC helpers — with equivalent C# code.
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2026-01-26
Productivity
Little-known shortcuts in TIA Portal
Little-known TIA Portal shortcuts like F7, Shift+F12 or Ctrl+B that dramatically improve daily workflow.
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2026-01-16
Automation
Chess, PLCs, and finite state machines
Chess and PLCs seen rigorously as finite state machines: formal definition, a chess model, a PLC model, and practical design principles.
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2026-01-14
Automation
freps: the tool that wasn’t supposed to exist (but did)
A lightweight Windows CLI utility to rename files, search text, replace content, and undo changes—no dependencies.
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