Have you wondered if Opto 22 PACs and the PAC Project software suite would work for your application?

Or maybe you want to demonstrate the software to someone else—say, a customer or your boss. 

Here's a great free way to test it out: the PAC Project Demo, now with an additional demo screen and a small library of artwork pieces you can use any way you want to in your own HMI project. 

You've probably heard about the continuing drought in California.

The U.S. Drought Monitor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln currently categorizes more than 94% of the state's total area as in "severe drought" or worse, and notes that snowpack statewide (from which we get most of our water through the year) is at only 5% of normal.

The worst-hit area is the center of the state, especially the Central Valley that produces many of the vegetables, fruits, and nuts that appear on dining tables throughout the U.S.—and the world.

If you're near Mobile, Alabama, or the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, join us next week for the 3rd annual Allied Electronics Mobile Technology Day.

You'll see some 25 Allied suppliers at the Expo demonstrating the latest tech products and ready to answer your questions.

Be sure to look for Opto 22's Dan White. Dan will be there to show you how easy it is to build your own mobile app to monitor and control Modbus/TCP devices, OPC UA systems and equipment, and of course Opto 22 SNAP PAC controllers. 

Say you've got a dry contact switch you want to monitor so you know when it's closed. Could be a level sensor or pressure indicator, a magnetic reed switch or snap-action micro switch, or maybe a relay contact.

There are lots of ways you could do that, but often the best way is to use a SNAP-IDC5-SW digital input module. Why?

• It supplies 15 volts of power to an external dry contact switch.
• You only need 2 wires to connect the switch to the module.
• You can monitor 4 switches from 1 module.

Ben Orchard raves about this module in his recent blog post on monitoring water usage, and with good reason: it makes life easier by saving wiring time and complexity.