Makers Blog

Find user stories of interesting ideas and solutions in this blog.
Note: The Makers Blog shows applications and user stories of community members that are not tested or reviewed by Phoenix Contact.

For questions, please go to the FORUM section and create a new entry there.

Want to add your own solution here? Just login as a registered user and click the "Create Blog entry" button. Find a short intro video by clicking the "How to create a blog entry" button. If you experience any problems with editing or publishing please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

: Dzmitry Ivaniuk; Makers Blog; 10 April 2020; Hits: 1774

Yet another how-to quick start

This post shows some user side point of view how to quick start with controller. Here on GitHub you can find how-to quick start manual.

Every feedback is welcome.

: Dries Van Laerhoven; Makers Blog; 06 April 2020; Hits: 2387

Getting started with Go on PLCnext

This blog will guide you through the first steps on building an application with Go on the PLCnext. For those who are unfamiliar with Go, I like to cite the reference website www.golang.org

Go is an open source programming language that makes it easy to build simple, reliable, and efficient software.

A particular reason to like Go is that it is easy to create web applications but still compiles to a static binary, hence you don't have to install packages on the PLCnext controller to deploy the program.

: Gianluca Riboldi; Makers Blog; 30 March 2020; Hits: 2198

Dynamic Axiobus Configuration Totally IEC 61131

This demo projects would like to be an easy way to implement an automatic startup of the Axioline configuration on the local bus of the PLC Next.

The project has been developed entirely in IEC 61131 to help developer who are not used to C++ or other HighLevel languages.

To do so I used the procedure for the bus startup found in Bus Conductor (https://github.com/PLCnext/BusConductor) and I trasposed it in IEC 61131.

: Dan Clark; Makers Blog; 13 March 2020; Hits: 2132

How to use a Phoenix Contact SD Card to automatically deploy a project onto a AXC F 2152 controller

This script has been developed to copy AXC F 2152’s filesystem from an external SD card to the internal SD card on a clean* AXC F 2152.

*A clean AXC F 2152 means there is no code on the controller. All code can be cleared from the controller with a Type 1 Reset.

IMPORTANT: If you have anything scheduled in cron under the root user, it will not be copied. You need to schedule scripts as admin in order for them to move to the other controller. If you need root rights for script, run this command: usermod -aG sudo admin

Pre-requisites:

To deploy this project, you MUST have a Phoenix Contact SD card (Part# 1043501 or 1061701), and your project must not exceed 400MB.

: Martin Boers; Makers Blog; 19 February 2020; Hits: 3740

How to turn an AXC F 2152 into an AWS Greengrass device

Starting with firmware version 2020.0, AXC F 2152 devices are now "Docker Ready". A guide showing how to install Balena Engine on an AXC F 2152 is available in Github.

This tutorial demonstrates how an OCI container can be used to easily turn an AXC F 2152 into an AWS IoT Greengrass device.

: Kay Suttkus; Makers Blog; 14 February 2020; Hits: 15743

Remote Debugging of a .Net Core application with VS Code on PLCnext

I would like to describe two different ways to remote debug a .Net Core 3.0 application with VS Code on a PLCnext target. In this post I'm using Debian 9 on my development machine and an AXC F 2152 with version: PLCnext Linux 2020.0.

Start and debug your remote application (Press "F5" and debug)
Attaching to remote processes

Before we could start to remote debug at our target, we have to prepare two different things. The first one is to set up the remote debugger and the second one is to enable an SSH key based authentication to the controller. The tutorial is based of two posts in the Makers Blog.

: Kay Suttkus; Makers Blog; 17 January 2020; Hits: 4174

Getting started with C# and .Net Core 3.0 on PLCnext

The following post shows a workflow how to develop a .Net Core application for a PLCnext target.
It is containing two steps:

Create a Hello World application with VS Code.
Publish the application to the controller.

In this example I'm using Debian 9 on my development machine and an AXC F 2152 with version: PLCnext Linux 2019.9.

: ixon; Makers Blog; 12 January 2020; Hits: 3220

How to access the PLCnext web server (HTTP) remotely using IXON Cloud

IXON developed Cloud Access so you can easily access your machine's HTTP(S) server without requiring a VPN connection. This enables you to access your machine's servers on any mobile and desktop device with an internet connection.

Access and control the PLCnext webserver directly and securely from your browser. No additional software needed. Because it runs via IXON's worldwide VPN network, a speedy and seamless connection is guaranteed.

Page 9 of 17