⁴¹Among these different controllers were a Distech ESP-410 building (HVAC) controller and a small PLC programmed with a custom PID control algorithm. In fact, a Desktop Process is ideal for courses where students create their own control algorithms in PLC or data acquisition hardware. The significance of controller scan rate becomes very easy to comprehend when controlling a process like this with such a short time constant. The contrast between a DDC controller with a 500 millisecond scan rate and a PLC with a 50 millisecond scan rate, for example, is marked.