Tag: Ladder Logic

Before the advent of solid-state logic circuits, logical control systems were designed and built exclusively around electromechanical relays. Relays are far from obsolete in modern design, but have been replaced in many of their former roles as logic-level control devices, relegated most often to those applications demanding high current and/or high voltage switching. Systems and…

Logic circuits, whether comprised of electromechanical relays or solid-state gates, can be built in many different ways to perform the same functions. There is usually no one “correct” way to design a complex logic circuit, but there are usually ways that are better than others. In control systems, safety is (or at least should be)…

The interlock contacts installed in the previous section’s motor control circuit work fine, but the motor will run only as long as each push button switch is held down. If we wanted to keep the motor running even after the operator takes his or her hand off the control switch(es), we could change the circuit…

A practical application of switch and relay logic is in control systems where several process conditions have to be met before a piece of equipment is allowed to start. A good example of this is burner control for large combustion furnaces. In order for the burners in a large furnace to be started safely, the…

We can construct simple logic functions for our hypothetical lamp circuit, using multiple contacts, and document these circuits quite easily and understandably with additional rungs to our original “ladder.” If we use standard binary notation for the status of the switches and lamp (0 for unactuated or de-energized; 1 for actuated or energized), a truth…

Ladder diagrams are specialized schematics commonly used to document industrial control logic systems. They are called “ladder” diagrams because they resemble a ladder, with two vertical rails (supply power) and as many “rungs” (horizontal lines) as there are control circuits to represent. If we wanted to draw a simple ladder diagram showing a lamp that…