William Couture wrote:

>Hi folks,
>
>The company I work for (Athena Controls) is thinking of advertising a new
>product in Embedded magazine.
>
>My boss is asking for my opinions, and I'd like to pick your collective brains.
>
>The product (though not the proposed ad) can be seen at
>   http://www.picemulator.com/emc40.pdf
>(135K) and is designed as a 4 zone temperature controller.
>  
>
First of all the last line on the 2nd page of the datasheet is 
incorrect.  Modbus is actually a Schneider Electric trademark not 
Allen-Bradley.

We do temperature control for our products.  Generally done in a PLC, 
but sometimes in a DIN temperature controller for systems that have a 
very low-end & inexpensive PLC.  I've seen anything from 2 zones up to 
the machine we recently quoted that would have nearly 100.

Disadvantages I see in the emc40 for the type of equipment we build:

1.  Packaging - bare circuit boards are not friendly.

2.  Power Supply -  I'd rather hook it directly to 120 VAC or 24 VDC 
than supply my own transformer.

3.  Can't program it in ladder logic.  Others on list have commented how 
they despise ladder logic, but for low volume, custom machines of the 
type I'm involved with, I'm not sure there is a much better option. 

Aaron
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