Can AI really program PLCs? What LLMs change in industrial automation, and what they don't Jul 10, 2026 Arduino & Raspberry Pi Industrial News, Industry 4.0, IoT There is a lot of noise around artificial intelligence replacing engineers, rewriting industries and making entire skill sets obsolete overnight. Industrial automation tells a different story. Can Cha... Read more
Arduino PLC vs ESP32 PLC vs Raspberry Pi PLC: Which to Choose Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant Arduino PLC vs ESP32 PLC vs Raspberry Pi PLC: Which to Choose Choosing between an Arduino-based PLC, an ESP32 PLC, and a Raspberry Pi PLC looks simple. Three families, three datasheets, one decision. ... Read more
RS485 Problems: Step-by-Step Bus Fault Diagnosis Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant RS-485 Diagnostic Checklist: How to Find the Intermittent Fault on Your Modbus RTU Bus A few months ago an integrator wrote to us on the verge of losing his best customer. His installation — a PLC pol... Read more
PLC Wiring Mistakes: The 10 That Destroy Your Panel Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant PLC Wiring Mistakes: The 10 That Destroy Your Panel A panel working on the test bench doesn't mean it's wired correctly. We see it constantly in technical support: the integrator tests everything in t... Read more
Arduino Industrial Components: 7 You Should Never Install Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant 7 'Maker' Components You Should Never Install on the Plant Floor (and Their Industrial Equivalent) The maker ecosystem is the best automation school there's ever been. We say that with full knowledge ... Read more
Modbus RTU vs Modbus TCP vs OPC UA: Which to Use Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant Modbus RTU vs Modbus TCP vs OPC UA: Which to Use The protocol you choose today will stay with the installation for its entire service life. Ten, fifteen years. And yet it's usually decided in five min... Read more
From prototype to industrial production: 12 steps Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant From prototype to industrial production: the 12-step checklist "The prototype already works. Now what?" It's the question I've been asked most often since we founded Industrial Shields in 2012. And th... Read more
CE marking control panel: the integrator's guide Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant CE marking for control panels and machines: the integrator's guide There's a misunderstanding about CE marking that we see repeated among integrators with twenty years of experience: "every component ... Read more
Open source PLC: 5 real case studies in industry Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant Open source PLC: 5 case studies of machines that run on it There's a question every engineer asks before their first project with an open source PLC: "does anyone actually use this for real work?" It'... Read more
Node-RED vs CODESYS vs Arduino IDE: which to pick Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant Node-RED vs CODESYS vs Arduino IDE: the honest ranking for programming your PLC There are three main ways to program an open source industrial PLC, and the question "which one is best?" reaches our te... Read more
8 Signs Your Prototype Isn't Production Ready Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant 8 signs your prototype doesn't have industrial reliability (the full audit) Your prototype works. That doesn't mean it will hold up on the plant floor. We're writing it this bluntly because it's the m... Read more
How to use SQLite with ESP32 PLC Jun 23, 2026 Arduino Industrial SQLite runs directly on any Industrial Shields ESP32 PLC equipped with an SD card, giving you a full relational database without a server. This guide shows how to create the schema on your PC, load it... Read more