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Recent blog entries.

Below are the 25 most recent blog posts. Click here to view all blog posts.

• PC Controls to Attend MIX2010 Conference

  2/9/2010 8:28:52 AM

  I am planning to attend the MIX2010 Conference again this year in Las Vegas, March 15-17. I attended last year as well and it was a useful and interesting experience.

  The conference has an interesting "MIX" of developers and designers. Although PC Controls and myself are more focussed on the development side, it seems you are always involved in the user interface and design at some level.

  I have heard other Minnesota techies / developers who ...

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• Configuring Multiple PLC Runtimes in TwinCAT

  11/19/2009 1:37:27 PM

  The TwinCAT system allows you to run up to 4 PLC runtimes on 1 PC based controller. This is a very useful feature, for example, I have used this during development by implementing a separate PLC Simulator program that runs on its own run-time.

  Variables from the second Simulator PLC project can be linked to the first, machine PLC project to act as inputs/outputs during development.

  Adding a Second TwinCAT PLC Runtime

  Right click on ...

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• Export from SQL Server to SQL Server Compact

  11/4/2009 7:42:22 AM

  It is not possible to use the import / export wizard to easily move data from SQL Server 2005/2008 to SQL Server Compact.

  However, I found an example of a stored procedure from this article Generating INSERT statements in SQL Server by Sumit Amar on CodeProject. The procedure can be used to generate insert statements for each row in a table. You can then apply these insert statements to a SQL Compact database using SQL Server Management ...

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• Connecting Visual Studio to Beckhoff Windows CE Devices

  8/20/2009 12:45:38 PM

  You can quickly develop .NET applications in Visual Studio that target Beckhoff Windows CE controllers. At some point, it always becomes essential to connect to the device from Visual Studio, and debug the application online, running on the device hardware and not just an emulator.

  After pressing F5 to deploy the application, it will prompt you to choose a device. The Windows CE Device is the correct choice, but unless connection options are set correctly, ...

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• TwinCAT NCI Running but Axes do not Move

  8/17/2009 1:07:23 PM

  It is very easy to create a 3 axis CNC system and run CNC commands and programs in simulation mode with TwinCAT NCI. Simply add 3 simulation axes X, Y, and Z to the NC taxk as shown in the configuration below. Then, add a NCI Channel to the task, save, and activate the configuration. After the system starts, goes green, and is running, assign the three axes to the NCI channel group and then enable ...

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• The Schtick Beckhoff Inverse Pendulum Control

  8/10/2009 10:19:17 AM

  Below is a very cool video demonstrating the type of control that can be accomplished with a Beckhoff Automation control system. It balances in inverse pendulum using a 500 microsecond control loop on a Windows Embedded PC based controller. This video is shown as part of the Microsoft IT Showcase.

  Become a fan of the Microsoft IT Showcase on Facebook.

  
  Hard Real-Time Demo: Hannover Messe

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• The Best TwinCAT PLC Font

  8/10/2009 9:03:33 AM

  When I was an early software programmer, I never changed any of the default options and fonts in the TwinCAT PLC Editor. If you work with the editor for long periods of time, however, you will soon find that it is very useful to use a very legible font. In addition, I have found that the use of a monotype font, where all characters are equal in length, is essential for efficiently developing code. ...

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• Website Search Issues Fixed

  8/9/2009 1:14:00 PM

  There were some major issues with the search box we use in the upper right corner of pages on this site. The Sitefinity CMS we use on this site has built in search and indexing capabilities, however we had it configured poorly.

  We have corrected an that was preventing the Enter key from firing the search.

  We have corrected a Javascript issue that was causing the text to disappear, and preventing the search text from being ...

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• Installing SQL Server CE Compact Edition

  8/6/2009 1:47:00 PM

  SQL Server Compact Edition (SQL Server CE) is a lightweight, yet powerful member of the SQL Server 2008 family. It can be installed on either a Windows Mobile device or on a full, desktop operating system.

  For example, a common use of SQL Server CE is to store data locally on a handheld device. This is often used in data collection and inspection systems when the device is only intermittently connected to a network, or synced ...

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• TwinCAT Blue Screen 64 Bit AMD Processor

  8/6/2009 12:49:41 PM

  I shamelessly copied this scenario and solution from the TwinCAT Developer LinkedIn group. Kudos to Steve Maves of Beckhoff Automation USA support, who fixed a customer's bluescreen issue by making the registry tweak below.

  I have had a Dell laptop on a project recently that blue screens every time I try to start the TwinCAT System. I am not sure if this is the same problem that is described below, but I am going to try ...

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• Beckhoff CX1000 CX1001 CX1010 CX1020 CX1030 Images

  8/3/2009 6:04:00 PM

  You may often need to restore a backup image to a CX controller, or be able quickly deploy a solid, tested image to multiple controllers. Here are some points and links to consider when planning a CX controller deployment. Note, that this article only applies to x86 based CX controllers, that have a removable CF card. This does not apply to embedded CX9000 series controllers. For those devices, browse to the links shown in the references at ...

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• Bechoff FTP Server Resources

  8/2/2009 7:23:00 PM

  Beckhoff has many resources to assist in developing applications on their embedded controllers.

  One of these lesser known, but extremely useful places is the Bedkhoff FTP Server: ftp://ftp.beckhoff.com

  For example, a cache of extremely useful Windows CE Embedded tools and solutions can be found in this sub-directory location.

  ftp://ftp.beckhoff.com/Software/embPC-Control/CE/Solutions

  Browsing Beckhoff FTP Server wtih Windows Explorer

  You can use either windows explorer or Internet explorer to easily browse FTP servers.

  

  Browsing Beckhoff FTP Server with Filezilla...

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• Technocrati Blog Code

  8/2/2009 8:13:00 AM

  ew68cjstnp

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• Minnesota Developers Conference 2009

  7/23/2009 11:34:53 AM

  I received news today about the Minnesota Developers Conference. I have not attended this event in the past, but am planning on doing it this year. It looks like an interesting, valuable, and fun event for developers. I have heard Mike Benkovich and Scott Davis speak at events in the past, and look forward to hearing more on their topics.

  Date: September 30, 2009 

  Price: $150 per attendee.

  Location: McNamara Alumni Center, University of Minnesota 200 ...

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• CX1000 Factory Reset

  7/14/2009 12:07:00 PM

  It is possible to do many very useful administrative tasks, including a factory reset of a Beckhoff embedded controller (CX1000, CX9000, CX1020 series) using the Web Administration Interface that is built into the embedded device's image.

  This is a documented feature within the Beckhoff Information System, but a search for this topic proved quite difficult and time consuming. Hopefully putting this information here will save others the headache.

  Note, the documentation says that this ...

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• TwinCAT NCI 3 Axis CNC Simulation Video

  7/6/2009 7:50:00 AM

  TwinCAT NCI is a PC based CNC controller, where you can group axes into a channel, and command them using standard G-Codes and part programs. It is very easy to quickly setup a 3 axes simulation in TwinCAT NCI for development and to demonstrate how to run programs.

  

  You need to download the trial version of TwinCAT and install it at the NCI level. During installation, there is a dialog with a choice to install TwinCAT at ...

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• Moving a Window back On Screen

  6/18/2009 1:45:39 PM

  Recently I had a problem in a demonstration to a customer where the window I wanted to show was off the screen. This is because I use two monitors on my docked workstation, but when I remove the laptop to use it remotely, sometime strange things like this occur. It extremely frustrating to have this happen in front of a group, and unless you've practiced these steps, there is nothing you can do to fix it quickly. ...

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• Beckhoff Infosys Search Tips

  6/3/2009 5:29:00 AM

  I regularly search the online Beckhoff Information System, (infosys.beckhoff.com) for information and programming examples.

  Tip 1. Use a mouse click, not the Enter key to initiate a search

  This may be obvious, and is more of an just an annoyance, but it was frustrating to me that the first couple times I searched that I was getting no results back. This is because the search form was not picking up the Enter key press. ...

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• Table Width Issues in Firefox

  6/1/2009 8:06:00 AM

  Background

  I was asked recently by a customer to help correct some strange layout behavior that they were seeing in their website application using the Apple Safari browser. The client had been diligently building and testing their application using IE and Firefox, however a new user wanted to use Safari as well. When opening the site in Safari, one of the main div containers looked ghastly, and was pushed up and over the other two ...

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• TwinCAT PLC Variable is too Large Error

  5/4/2009 1:25:58 PM

  Recently, I was working on a PLC program and ran into this error message. I had created several data structures, and marked them with wildcard output addresses as shown below:

  stInProductStack AT %Q*: ARRAY [1..1200] OF ST_InProductRecord;

  However, I received an error in the message window when trying to build the PLC project:

  Error 3801 Data(10): The variable 'stInProductStack' is too large (24000 bytes)

  This did not make sense to me at first. I was trying to use ...

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• Useful Free Programming Utilities

  4/23/2009 8:52:37 AM

  I was cleaning up my computer, and decided to take an inventory of some of the more useful free programs that I have installed.

  I built up a list by inspecting these areas:

  1. Remove Programs List
  2. Program Files folder
  3. Startup Menu Folder
  4. Registry Startup Keys

  It seems we need an ever increasing array of tools to build software effeciently. My list of programs has grown to what seems like an alarming number. However, I believe ...

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