Episode 1 — Pump failure alerts on your phone via Telegram with an ESP32 PLC Jul 21, 2026 From Prompt to Plant From Prompt to Plant is the series where we share, openly and in full, the prompts that let you program an Industrial Shields PLC with Claude Code. The AI writes the code; you validate it on a test be... Read more
Industrial Shields at Automation Expo 2026 | Visit us in Mumbai Jul 21, 2026 Arduino & Raspberry Pi Industrial News, Industry 4.0, IoT Industrial Shields will be at Automation Expo 2026 in Mumbai from 22 to 25 July , together with our Indian distribution partner Visha World . Find us at Hall 6, Stand O-26 , at the Nesco exhibition ce... Read more
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 Complete guide: How to choose an industrial controller Arduino PLC vs ESP32 PLC vs Raspberry Pi PLC: which one should you choose? Choose an Arduino based PLC (M-Duino, ATmega2560, no operating system)... Read more
RS485 troubleshooting: step-by-step bus fault diagnosis Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant Most intermittent RS-485 faults (timeouts, CRC errors, garbage bytes) come from the physical layer, not from the code. Check the bus in this order: the real topology, the termination (about 60 Ω betwe... 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 Use Modbus RTU for the field bus (RS-485, up to 1,200 m, one master and up to 247 slave addresses), Modbus TCP for the control network between PLCs, SCADA and HMIs (Ethernet, TCP port 502, several cli... 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 for control panels: the integrator's guide for 2027 Jul 6, 2026 From Prototype to Plant A control panel needs CE marking when you place it on the EU market or put it into service as a product. For a typical industrial panel, the panel builder applies the Low Voltage Directive 2014/35/EU,... 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 Complete guide: How to choose an industrial controller Node-RED vs CODESYS vs Arduino IDE: which one should you use to program your PLC? Use CODESYS when the team already works in IEC 61131-3 (Ladder,... Read more