deltav - PLC Programming & Automation

PLC vs DCS Programming: Where the Two Part Ways

September 13, 2026January 22, 2024 by PLC

Timing chart of an analog HI alarm: the process value crosses the limit, a three second on-delay expires, the alarm goes active and stays unacknowledged until the operator acknowledges it, then clears when the value returns below the limit

PLC vs DCS programming compared by an engineer who works on both: tags and rungs against loops and blocks, redundancy, alarms, batch and real cost.

PLC vs DCS Integration: Getting a Skid onto the DCS

September 12, 2026January 17, 2024 by PLC

Timing chart of a DCS to PLC heartbeat: the DCS counter steps every second, the PLC echoes it, and the Comms OK bit drops three seconds after the counter freezes

How a packaged skid PLC gets tied into DeltaV, Experion or PCS 7: link protocol, Modbus register map, heartbeat, engineering units and alarm ownership.