The first two videos in this series showed how to configure and wire simple digital I/O to work with a Soft-I/O based control system. This video builds on these basic concepts and shows the flexibility of Soft-I/O and how to add a simple analog input to ANY of the Soft-I/O pins.

The first video introduced some of the fundamental concepts of "soft wiring" items in Soft-I/O. This video builds on that information and demonstrates how to wire and configure a simple actuator (a light in this example) and integrate it with the sensor (actuator from the first video).

Push buttons are some of the simplest sensor devices available. Wiring them to traditional control systems seems to contradict this assertion.

This short video introduces the use of Soft-Devices in Soft-I/O and displays a new, labor saving and flexible way of wiring a simple push button to a Soft-I/O based control system.

This video shows how to configure the alarm functionality it Soft-I/O. The content builds on the other videos in the series and would make more sense if you watch them first.

Manual History

Early semiconductor fabrication facilities (fabs) had a remarkable amount of manual labor to move wafers around from machine to machine and run them through the hundreds of processes to make a finished wafer.The model largely changed with the move to 300mm wafers. This is the story of one critical piece of new equipment and how Soft-I/O saved money and improved reliability while delivering better performance. The machine is a Pod Door Opener or a FOUP opener.  Here's the story.

I was showing Soft-I/O to an electrical engineer friend who works in a development laboratory designing things like battery chargers. After a little while hearing about Soft-I/O, he said, “I could use a couple of dozen of those modules in my lab.” Bob’s comment caught me a little off guard because I had normally thought of people using Soft-I/O in machines or buildings, not sitting on a shelf in an engineering lab. What our friend was talking about was using Soft-I/O as a “tool” just like an oscilloscope. Here’s the story about one of the first things Bob did with Soft-I/O in his laboratory.

A light tower is a deceptively simple device.  It has maybe four lights in a stack that sit above a tool on the production floor.  In semiconductor fabs where wafers are processed into chips, light towers can help operators and technicians identify tools that need attention.  So what's so difficult about this problem?

Overview

The Temperature Controller Soft-Device adds a user-configurable single-loop temperature controller to the Soft-I/O module in which it is installed.

The Soft-I/O temperature controller Soft-Device will outperform many dedicated, stand-alone temperature controller modules costing hundreds of dollars, and it is free with every Soft-I/O module! A powerful wizard helps you to set up the controller, guiding you to select a temperature sensor, output device and other parameters.

The most common configuration is to use an RTD as the temperature sensor. Thermocouples can also be used, but because of the low-level nature of thermocouples, you will probably want to reserve their use for temperatures above about 300C.  If you are operating in a narrow temperature range of 0--150C, you can use a solid state sensor which tends to give you high precision and high accuracy with a high level signal.  

You can use an analog output to controller your heat source, but it's much more common to use Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) where the heat source is turned on and off usually at a relatively low frequency such as 1Hz. Soft-I/O can adjust the duty cycle of the output to give you very fine control over the amount of heat being delivered.

Once you have the input and output selected, you can close the loop and then watch graphically as the Soft-I/O temperature controller brings your system to the desired temperature.

After that, you can implement setpoint ramping, a capability often not found in other temperature controllers. This allows you to bring your system up (or down) to temperature with very little chance for over (or under) shoot. And, the Soft-I/O temperature controller supports multiple ramp/soak profiles to allow building elaborate temperature control systems.

What's not to like about something free? You get an advanced temperature controller with every Soft-I/O module that you buy!

The Mass Flow Controller Soft-Device facilitates connection and configuration of a user-supplied mass flow controller (MFC) having analog setpoint and monitor signal requirements, to a Soft-I/O module. MFC power and ground are also configured—and supplied by the Soft-I/O module.