Industrial Engineer · phase 1 of 16
Terminal Block
Removable or fixed connector where field wiring lands on an I/O module or base.
The Explain card
- Plain English
- The terminal block is the strip of screw or spring clamps where the field wires physically land. On many cards it unplugs from the module so you can swap the card without lifting a single wire.
- Example
- A technician replaces a failed input card by pulling the terminal block off the front, seating it on a new card, and never touching the wiring.
- Why it matters
- Loose terminals cause more intermittent faults than any bug in the program. A removable block also means the block can be seated one slot over, which puts sixteen wires on the wrong card.
- Hook
- Most ghosts in the machine live under a screw.
Where it sits in the deck
Phase 1: PLC Controller Hardware
The box itself, from processor and rack to the modules that plug into it, because nothing else in the deck lands until you know what a PLC physically is.
