Industry Focus

An Auger, a PLC, and a VFD Walk Into a Farm…

Theresa Hoffman

September 8, 2026

If you use your clever friend Google and type in “what is an auger?”, you’ll get a pretty straightforward answer: a drilling tool with a spiral-shaped metal shaft used to bore holes in wood, ice, or even clear clogs from pipes.

Of course, it’s true because it’s on the internet, right? Well, after digging (no pun intended!) into augers used in agriculture, I learned that you have to be a little more specific when asking Google.

It turns out the farm industry doesn’t use augers to drill down. Instead, they use them to bring things up.

Think of an auger as an elevator for grain.

When you first dive into agricultural equipment, an auger looks like one of the simplest machines on the farm. And, at its core, it is pretty simple: a giant metal screw inside a tube that moves material from one place to another.

Imagine you have a massive pile of harvested corn on the ground that needs to make its way into the high entrance of a storage silo. You feed the grain into the intake, the internal screw rotates, and the auger mechanically transports the material up the tube and into the silo.

Simple, right?

For a standalone field auger, a basic on/off switch might do the trick. But step inside a modern commercial grain elevator, a high-capacity drying operation, or an automated livestock feed system, and that “simple” mechanical auger suddenly becomes part of a much bigger system.

And when one part of that system stops working, things can get messy.

In a fully integrated grain-handling system, if a vertical auger jams while the horizontal conveyor feeding it keeps running, you can end up with a massive pileup that takes hours of backbreaking manual labor to clear. If the motor keeps trying to push through the jam, you could also end up with damaged components, twisted flighting, or a much more expensive repair.

The good news? You don’t need to buy a million-dollar, next-generation smart machine to make your equipment smarter.

By retrofitting standard machinery with a few smart control components, you can give your existing equipment a serious upgrade.

If your auger could talk, here’s what a little automation might allow it to say before disaster strikes:

“I’m making that noise again.”

Vibration Sensors

Before an electric motor or bearing fails, there are often warning signs. Changes in vibration and temperature can indicate that something isn’t quite right.

Condition monitoring sensors can keep an eye on motors and other critical components around the clock, helping identify mechanical wear and developing problems before they turn into an unexpected shutdown.

In other words, your equipment may be trying to tell you something. You just need the right technology to listen.

“Something’s stuck.”

Overload Relays

When a rock, thick clump of material, or other obstruction jams an auger, the motor has to work harder to keep things moving. That increased load can lead to higher current draw and, if left unchecked, equipment damage.

Electronic overload protection and current monitoring can provide an important layer of protection, helping detect abnormal conditions and shut down equipment before a small jam becomes a much bigger problem.

Sometimes the best automation strategy is simply knowing when to say, “Okay, everybody stop.”

“Why am I running at full speed?”

Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs)

Not every auger needs to run at 100% speed all the time.

If a moisture-heavy crop is slowly coming out of a dryer, for example, running the auger at full speed may waste energy and potentially create unnecessary stress on the material and equipment.

A VFD gives you control over the motor’s speed, allowing the auger to ramp up smoothly instead of starting with a hard mechanical jolt. It can also slow the auger down or speed it up to better match the flow of material moving through the system.

Because sometimes your equipment doesn’t need to go faster. It just needs to go smarter.

“Nobody noticed I stopped.”

Stack Lights & Audible Alarms

Agricultural facilities can be loud. Very loud. And operators can’t be everywhere at once.

Industrial signaling devices, such as LED stack lights and audible alarms, provide an immediate visual or audible indication when equipment faults or a process stops.

Instead of discovering an equipment failure because someone eventually notices that the grain isn’t moving anymore, operators can get an immediate heads-up that something needs attention.

“Please stop feeding me grain.”

PLCs

This is where the real automation magic happens.

A PLC can act as the central brain of an automated grain-handling system, coordinating equipment and making sure everything works together in the right sequence.

If the PLC detects that a downstream auger has faulted, for example, it can signal upstream conveyors to stop feeding material into it. Instead of one failed component causing a chain reaction throughout the system, the controls can help contain the problem and prevent unnecessary equipment from continuing to run.

A few relatively simple control components can make a very big difference when they’re working together.

On its own, an auger is still a pretty simple machine, but when you connect that mechanical equipment to sensors, VFDs, signaling devices, and PLCs, something interesting happens.

The auger becomes part of a much bigger conversation.

It can monitor its own condition. It can recognize when something isn’t right. It can adjust its speed, communicate a fault, and even tell the rest of the system to stop before a small problem becomes a big one.

That’s the idea behind Industry 4.0 in agriculture. It doesn’t always look like robots driving around a futuristic farm. Sometimes, it looks like a giant metal screw getting a little smarter about moving grain.

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