"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote in message
.3.70...

Tom Gardner mars@tacks fired this volley in
m:

I'm at the age where I feel the need to challenge my brain to keep it
functioning. What control scheme would you learn if you were in my
shoes?

Both, Tom. It's the only way I stay at "medium alert" as opposed to just
plain "old and dumb"! I'm learning on an Arduino chip now, as an
alternative to PLCs.

Lloyd

I'm gradually working toward trying to make a library of functions to make
it easier to write PLC type programs in an Arduino. This will allow the
Arduino to control several things at once instead of doing one thing at a
time. I think the correct name for it is non-preemptive multitasking. The
loop runs through continuously as fast as it can, like PLC scans, and
conditions control the sequence. So far my biggest "PLC like" addition is a
time on delay. I also made a counter function using the same data structure
type as the counter. Anyway the timer is a single function that can be
called multiple times using a different timer data for each event I'm using
a time delay for. If I want to read a sensor every 0.1 seconds, read
another sensor every 5 seconds, and update the display every half second, no
problem.

I got my load cell scale working pretty good so far but still have several
things to add. For one l only have it displaying in decimal pounds, I want
to add units later. I'm wanting to be able to plug in different load cells
to this scale display depending on what I'm wanting to weigh. Once I get a
load cell set up and calibrated, I want to be able to name that load cell
data structure an appropriate name and save to eeprom. Then if I change
scales I should be able select the load cell data name from the display and
load the relevant calibration data and is should be ready to go.

RogerN