Yes, but our VFDs are a bit bigger and mostly Allen Bradley components but also the occasional Siemens cabinet like yours. We make conveyor installations and palletising equipment
the machines i work on use like a thousand fricking beckhoff modules...i think the cheapest ones are like $500 and there is one purely for licensing that is like 5k...possibly more.
Seems like a good thread to ask, I added a VFD to my 90s-made lathe, and it's next to a time delay switch (which was originally there to supply power to brakes if the e-stop is triggered, though this model has no brakes). Ever since the VFD was added, the time delay switch makes a ton of noise, as if it was rapidly triggering on and off, but ultimately it doesn't actually do anything bad, it just makes a ton of scratchy noise.
I removed some unused electronics in the process of adding the VFD, mostly for the coolant pump, I don't think those would be causing the issues. Tried putting ferrite cores on the wires to/from the VFD, didn't do much.
>Tried putting ferrite cores on the wires to/from the VFD, didn't do much.
well no shit
concerning your problem, since youre obviously an amateur who has no buiseness touching this shit, who knows what you fricked up to cause this issue
I'm sorry for not paying a specialist $1000 to install a $150 VFD into a $2000 lathe. The VFD introduces noise into the lines so I figured it's worth a shot with the cores. Could also be the VFD itself making EM noise that messes with it, but I don't have anywhere else to put it. I didn't do anything with any of the signal lines that go to the switch or come from the switch.
i start with the obvious
why dont you just disconnect it if it doesnt do anything
6 months ago
Anonymous
If I were to ever sell off the lathe, I'd prefer to have it closer to its original condition than not, and while removing it wouldn't be very hard, re-adding it would be. But yes, tossing it is an option.
6 months ago
Anonymous
Try bumping up the switching frequency in the drive
I'm paid to make the paper to print these guys' instructions on. Sorry lads, I was shitposting instead of watching the reject machine and let a few shitty slices slip through to packaging. >t. paper mill worker
I’m paid to instruct the electrical engineer which components I need and they spend 200 hours in eplan putting it together with wire numbers and shit. Then site team brings them the as built modifications to process and they spend another 100 hours in eplan.
[...]
[...]
I'm paid to make the boxes these guys' ship the products in.
>t, box factory worker
Question, is it possible for aging contractors to start creating flyback voltage and damaging PLC output relays? Cuz I have a weird situation like this.
I'm paid to keep the machines running that make the beer cans these anons drink their beer out of after a long day of flying into a white hot rage because they had to unfrick everything the engineers laid their grubby little fingers on
>I'm fresh outta school and kinda shit
dont worry anon, the old farts with 20 years under their belt are shit too.
you will always be hated by the coworkers lower in the foodchain
Yep my plant still has about 15 PLC 5 processors. We're slowly replacing them but the last migration was kind of a shitshow so it might be awhile till the next one. We also have like 80 SLC 500.
And I thought we're bad with a 20yo AD plant running on SLCs still. Nice prices on CPUs these days lol
6 months ago
Anonymous
Two guys in my country founded a company some years ago that clears out old factories and buys old machinery and spares on auction. A replacement SLC in its box goes for €3k so I’m pretty sure they’re millionaires by now
6 months ago
Anonymous
tfw my plant hoards all the shit we pull when we do upgrades as spares for stuff we haven't upgraded yet
6 months ago
Anonymous
best thing to do,
we throw the stuff away because storage costs money (in reality our department pays money to a different department) this is so stupid but years ago some clever MBA calculated that trowing away parts saves storage costs and containers were filled with super rare S5s drives and other stuff and crushed.
the storage rooms are now empty and still cost the same real money as if they were full. but maintenance has to pay less money to the property department.
maintenance departments with lots of old stuff even have so called black storage where they putt in stuff "illegal" and leave it off the books, but that has the downside other departments in need can never find those parts in the spare part managing system.
6 months ago
Anonymous
my plant did some dumb shit too
we had a "junk" building where we had tons of spare parts and whole MCC sections and the whole lot
part of the building was converted to waste treatment so it became their building and they chucked all that stuff outside. So it all went to shit and NOS MCC sections that had been sitting in that building since the 90s got scrapped out.
6 months ago
Anonymous
the migration costs have been pretty bad. My plant got fricked over by inter plant politics by the engineering department so it's the last to get upgraded when the others did ten years ago.
Rockwell looked at the parts we requested to do an upgrade ourselves and basically told us to pound sand. They wouldn't sell us the new stuff in quantity. So we're having to do everything with integrators who have the stuff and can order it.
6 months ago
Anonymous
> Rockwell looked at the parts we requested to do an upgrade ourselves and basically told us to pound sand. They wouldn't sell us the new stuff in quantity. So we're having to do everything with integrators who have the stuff and can order it.
Thats so fricked.
6 months ago
Anonymous
They basically said that they don't have enough parts and that if they sold them to us they wouldn't have enough to supply other customers with needed spares. So basically they would sell us as many as they'll sell everyone else supposedly.
6 months ago
Anonymous
That’s probably because Rockwell (and others) are having a huge shortage and do triage. We’re a pretty big machine supplier and couldn’t get some stuff from Rockwell because it was in short supply. But the F500 client that the machines were for could order those same parts directly through them in like 2 weeks, plus everything they needed for future projects.
6 months ago
Anonymous
the oem who produced the rockwell cam controllers went belly up a few months ago
things are about to get spicy in 2024
6 months ago
Anonymous
It's definitely bad. We started buying larger drives from toshiba since wait times on AB drives is 6 months.
I don't recommend the toshiba AS3s though they're kinda pieces of shit.
>just build your own drives, bro
6 months ago
Anonymous
It's definitely bad. We started buying larger drives from toshiba since wait times on AB drives is 6 months.
I don't recommend the toshiba AS3s though they're kinda pieces of shit.
Wow that's some old ass shit. I saw a brand new smc-3 soft start the other day on a newly installed machine, really boggled my noggin that companies still spec out soft starts in 2023
yep I work with a lot of old ass shit, lot of new shit too
surprisingly we haven't had to swap out any of those SMC Plus yet
unlike the smc dialog plus which we're slowly having to replace due to failures.
Bretty neat. I worked for a wood products company some years ago that had a ton of old shit laying around. Soft starts, line reactors fed from dual size 5 and 6 starters, ancient 1300 series drives, plc2 stuff. And the machinery had long since been upgraded, but they left all the old stuff in place. Reminded me of ancient Roman cities just being built over again and again lol. Also I love finding stupid shit like pic related and calling it out at morning meetings to see who just stuffed this in the box without mounting it.
No one. Bosses don't pay for us to make autistic wire art unless it's maybe the install.
The guys that messed it up should be disciplined but there's no budget to go and take down whatever shit is fucjed up in there and reroute it so it's nice.
As far as ik concerned crazy shit like that means the perpetrator is either on drugs, or doesnt know the very essentials on how to do his job. Either way I want him on the chopping block. It's not even just the final product of the wiring, I am certain to get to that point he wasn't troubleshooting, he was just changing shit at random and then after 12nhours it finally worked and everyone thought he was a genius. But it should've only taken 2 if he knew what he was doing
in my company all trouble shooting has to be done with a different colored wire than the cabinet.
once a year during yearly shutdown someone has to fix the shit and put a new wire laid nicely and update the wiring scheme.
are there any hard coded standards for proper wiring? paint-by-numbers tier? maybe that's the problem.
can't expect every overworked sparky to be a master artist for free
>The easiest would just be: Follow what everyone else is doing. Don't just fly across the entire box. >What you're supposed to do various slightly with manufacturer and exact box specs, but if you're conscientious you should be fine.
so that's a no then? why would you expect junkies and rednecks to give a shit
6 months ago
Anonymous
Wtf are you talking about. No one should be getting into one of those boxes for less than $35/hour.
If you do, you're not making enough.money
6 months ago
Anonymous
This is why when we build installations in the US, we bring our own hired electricians from Poland. They work harder and complain less for ~€18 an hour
6 months ago
Anonymous
and thats why the skilled poles say frick that and move back to europe where they get paid 35€
6 months ago
Anonymous
We had company standards and hired contractors to do most of the wiring. The ones who really cared and did excellent work were basically full time employees. Even if we didn't have much, we paid them so they wouldn't run off to another jobs. The shitty ones were never used again. The worse were banned forever.
Afaik no, even the UL inspectors don’t seem to care, only the clients do. There’s NEC 409 and another bunch of rules that say you can’t put too small cable tray, and too sharp corners, or have them hang loose, but afaik the routing itself is just how you want it. There are standards for cabinet layout tho
it's a great example of a poor design. The panel is located inside the equipment low enough you have to be on your knees to work on it in a wet environment.
The panduit is way too close to the terminal blocks and it's very tight and crowded making it basically unusable. Which is why it ended up like this. There's 12 identical panels just like this.
I have to get bi yearly online recertification for low voltage safety norms and it always starts with this video. There’s also one of a guy who jump scares his electrician colleague, the guy jumps and gets 400V fried
I've thankfully never had to work on Siemens stuff
S7 classic was pretty cool, it used the old windows gui so no mouse needed and you could navigate it with your eyes closed.
Is allen bradley software also a slow, bloated mess like TIA? I only have experience with TIA, Codesys and a little Twincat
I'm on TIA 18 now and there is still no global replace. I work on automobile now and sometimes I just have to replace some silly word on a huge program. I'm still also waiting for dark themes on PLCs. to become popular. I've only seen it on Codesys, and only for SCL and FBD
been on tia 16 for two year now
didnt experience a crash in ages
while not snappy, our safety plc ide takes the cake for slow, worst software ive ever seen.
like imagine you delete a line, and after 10 seconds of freeze it removes a random network inside the function, but the fricking line is still there lol
> Is allen bradley software also a slow, bloated mess like TIA?
No, I do both TIA and Logix projects and Logix is decent. It’s fast, import/export system is miles ahead, occasionally crashes but not nearly as often as TIA does, global replace, configurable shortcuts are great.
The only downsides imo are that FT View (the HMI building program) is very poor in terms of usability, and you still can’t online edit AOIs. It’s my favourite after step7 classic
been on tia 16 for two year now
didnt experience a crash in ages
while not snappy, our safety plc ide takes the cake for slow, worst software ive ever seen.
like imagine you delete a line, and after 10 seconds of freeze it removes a random network inside the function, but the fricking line is still there lol
Is it ASiMon?
https://i.imgur.com/V2wVWg0.jpg
Yes, every day
Wow that's some old ass shit. I saw a brand new smc-3 soft start the other day on a newly installed machine, really boggled my noggin that companies still spec out soft starts in 2023
I configured a bunch of SMC3s last year. Low budget installation, single direction single speed motor. They’re pretty nice to work with and in my experience don’t fail as much as people say they do.
We do used to have a lot of 525s fail in the past because apparently nobody told the hardware guys that you’re not supposed to cut the supply voltage while they are running.
Nah I used to sit next to the guy at our company that did a lot of Asimon stuff. At random times, the program would crash and he’d just lock his computer, get up, walk out and take the rest of the day off
https://i.imgur.com/NcO26lF.jpg
Panel builders, how may things are wrong here?
lol might want to weld the door closed for safety reasons
>We do used to have a lot of 525s fail in the past because apparently nobody told the hardware guys that you’re not supposed to cut the supply voltage while they are running.
Good point. Sux ass because people love to retrofit old starters with them, and then leave the existing control relays in place so the line voltage is constantly dropping out every time something stops. Very annoying tbh, it's not that hard to pull six new wires and segment that shit!
depends which one it is. The older ones are fast to open and good in general. Studio 5000 opens slow as frick and is slow to accept edits but otherwise good
[...]
[...]
I'm paid to make the boxes these guys' ship the products in.
>t, box factory worker
Question, is it possible for aging contractors to start creating flyback voltage and damaging PLC output relays? Cuz I have a weird situation like this.
What manufacturer of the drive? I tell you it's not Fanuc, since I work on them.
I also have a lot of drives going to shit because of failing electrolytic caps. Numerous rexroth indramat drives from the late 90's iirc.The ones with the fiber optic SERCOS interface.
after 20-30 years electronic a shit just becomes a nightmare, it runs fine for years without any fault because every bug got fixed at some point.
but even looking at it wrong and it dies without a visible reason. and then good luck finding a spare part.
>Lenze. Second time this has happened.
My guess was Mitsubishi, guess I was wrong. That said I have only seen a few SCRs blown in my life and they usually cause by bad regen phases in power supplies. Majority of time is IPMs, and once in a while a large cap that decides to go frick it. Fanuc isn't safe from problems tho, especially their C-series and Beta line. >Hey let's put the cooling fan right next to 244 leg processor chip, what can go wrong?
looks fine to me, not a fan of fuses without any disconnect though. I don't usually carry my fuse puller so I prefer ones that I can isolate more easily. Like the little rock out ones
Is there a game that teaches this stuff? I don't wanna drop several grand on this boomertech IRL, but it looks like the kinda autism Zachtronics would do
I'm paid to make the paper to print these guys' instructions on. Sorry lads, I was shitposting instead of watching the reject machine and let a few shitty slices slip through to packaging. >t. paper mill worker
I'm paid to come up with these guy's instructions.
I'm fresh outta school and kinda shit, sorry lads.
>t. electrical engineer
I'm paid to make the boxes these guys' ship the products in.
>t, box factory worker
Question, is it possible for aging contractors to start creating flyback voltage and damaging PLC output relays? Cuz I have a weird situation like this.
Why is it seemingly a rare occurrence? There are plenty of contractors out there wired straight to PLC output relays but 99.999% of them are fine. This one was fine for years until recently.
Putting in an isolation relay stopped it from blowing up more PLC outputs.
>Question, is it possible for aging contractors to start creating flyback voltage and damaging PLC output relays? Cuz I have a weird situation like this.
when switching Contactors with plcs you should add a flyback diode. siemens has some that plug right in the Siemens contactors
I'm an old timey machinist and I don't have a single computer in my shop other than the ancient ThinkPad I send emails on. Wandering into this thread feels like looking at alien space ship equipment.
I largely ignore the engineer stupid ideas when I program a new job. I write out a bullshit sequence of operations to get them to sign off. I don't want to take calls from dimwitted maintenence men all day.
I’ve spent enough time in both commissioning and standardisation to know that all of you guys do this. Never reading any docs, building the same ‘loops’ and ‘algorithms’ every damn time while there’s a perfectly tested, documented, version controlled implementation in the library.
If you change my block signatures have fun writing the client documentation and test reports yourself in 3 languages
our in house library is so fricking dogshit and ever since they hired an army of graduates they decided to turn it into an endless see of micro functions that no sane person can overlook anymore.
almost like the mobile app cancer, 300mb for a bubble level app
like do they know we build the same fricking machine on 1990s hardware in 3000 lines of code? difference is back then they did it in a month or two, not two years with result yet to be seen
I dealt with the same mess you came from. But there’s an other side to that, which is some old guys love to ship untested shit and spend literal months on site to ‘fine tune’ their latest brilliant change.
Commissioning hours through the roof because Barry had to improve his self invented sorting routine which he absolutely refuses to document and now divides by zero at full moon
I was learning about BACnet today because climate control sensors have been dropping out of our BMS system. Trying to figure out if there’s something like a profitrace I can do.
>I was learning about BACnet today because climate control sensors have been dropping out of our BMS system. Trying to figure out if there’s something like a profitrace I can do.
I'm about to go work in hvac controls installing automation equipment, what am I in for?
And what exactly requires brain power? Even the electrical code accomodates hvac techs cause their not real electricians and requires local disconnects. As for the controls its all so stupid simple your only advantage over the customer is the dongle required to access the controller.You can always dazzle em by saying "psychometric" or "tempered air". Ive yet to meet an hvac rep with more than 2 shit nuggets between their ears all they know is what carrier and trane sells them not actual solutions. Cushy job if youre a smooth brain.
Speaking of local disconnects. Does the line of sight disconnect rule apply in an industrial setting or is there an exemption?
5 months ago
Anonymous
>Does the line of sight disconnect rule apply in an industrial setting or is there an exemption?
what do you mean by industrial setting? hazardous location? yes it still applies
5 months ago
Anonymous
line of site disconnect for hvac weenies applies for all hvac equip running over 120/240. commercial or industrial the hvac weenie must be protected by a burly sparky. yes its that gay
I'm not going to be doing any of the mechanical stuff though, I have an electrical background.
In industrial? Be ready to climb a lot of stairs and then some ladders then crouch under two pipes take another ladder and attach the fall guard before you can access a panel or check some wiring.
Factories prefer their hvac stuff to be as inaccessible as possible to leave room for forklifts, machines and shelving units. Also you may need to explain to multiple people daily that the heating works but it’s cold because someone left the bay doors open again Other than that it’s pretty nice.
Not a hvac tech myself but that’s what I hear from the hvac bros when we do an on site install
>I love you guys. I keep threatening to clean up the rats nest that is our network at work.
Your problem is technical people who are lazy and figure they can always sort it out if needed. My customers are mostly non-technical people with a rat's nest made by several different lazy technical people over the course of decades. They pay me to clean it up and they're bloody happy when it's done.
Pros of cleanup the old stuff: pretty
Autism satisfied.
Cons: oh whoops. The guy in the other unit that shares this closet was still us8ng that pbx, music system, t1, whatever...
No one's paying me to remove stuff anyway. I'd l love to have a job cleaning up wire closets.
In Fanuc in world, that's the literal anti christ there.
after 20-30 years electronic a shit just becomes a nightmare, it runs fine for years without any fault because every bug got fixed at some point.
but even looking at it wrong and it dies without a visible reason. and then good luck finding a spare part.
>then good luck finding a spare part.
It gets better with any OEM. Fanuc loves to discontinued parts for their modern drives for no reason at all other than to sell you their next line of drives. That Alpha series spindle amp needs new current detectors? Well frick you, we don't make those anymore, but the customer can upgrade to a new machine with Alpha i controls, because the i stands for idiots, cause you're idiot for falling for our bullshit.
Had to troubleshoot a client on this one time.
As a zoomer I never work with S5 before so it was hell. Thankfully the program was printed (list, german comment)
Only few old automacion technician know how to propely work with it at my job.
You havent seen the worst of it.
The bottom of the cabinet was full of chips and i drained like 2 liters of oil/coolant. I think the machine was fixed a couple of times while being full of chips, because i found chips next to the wires going into terminal blocks. Half of the wires and contactors are not even used lol.
Also pic related, wires melted together due hot conductors.
>install new drive in machine #2 >machine 1 & 2 should be identical so I copy the parameters from #1 >drive #2 now reports that the motor is running double the speed of machine #1 >spend lots of time checking inputs and parameters
[...]
installed a gearbox in machine 2 that's 2x the ratio of machine 1
>should be identical so I copy the parameters
moron alert
even when i build a clone alongside the original, parameters can differ in process critical places.
why? in machine building everything is custom, and nothing ever is made with the same tolerances or mounted friction fit instead of relying on dowel pins
https://i.imgur.com/f3goGuP.jpg
anyone still running S5?
lots of nuclear powerplants do
Was anyone here really awful at their job at first? I like learning this stuff but I'm having to find needing extra help with understanding the assignments now we're getting into the stuff past timers and math institutions, next course goes more into building processes with these commands
yea everyone is. i give new wire monkeys the benefit of doubt for two years, if they still suck after that its simply because they dont want to improve or be competent themself.
one only improves with projects done, and with projects going for multiple months, building knowledge takes years.
for example I would not hire a mason with half a hand of houses build
I'm actually a journeyman electrician by trade so maybe I'm just suffering from impostor syndrome but this stuff is just on a whole other level but you're right and I'm letting some of the autistics I know that work in stem get the best of me lol
a few years ago a nuke plant asked for PDP-11 programmers on vintage computer federation saying they plan to run them till 2050. they control material handling robots ore some stuff with it.
Yea, maybe. But I really don't want to teach myself all the details of this ancient drive from 1995 when this is probably the only time I'm ever going to touch it. I might program 1 drive a year if I'm lucky.
And it's not a situation where it's going to frick something up if it's wrong.
and speaking of gearboxes... In a machine that has probably 12 + gearboxes that are all supposed to run the same speed someone installed a box that was like 5.27:1 instead of 5:1 probably because the 5:1 was NLA. Works fine for99% of stuff but certain jobs would stress the motor and annoy the drive.
>should be identical so I copy the parameters
moron alert
even when i build a clone alongside the original, parameters can differ in process critical places.
why? in machine building everything is custom, and nothing ever is made with the same tolerances or mounted friction fit instead of relying on dowel pins
[...]
lots of nuclear powerplants do
[...]
yea everyone is. i give new wire monkeys the benefit of doubt for two years, if they still suck after that its simply because they dont want to improve or be competent themself.
one only improves with projects done, and with projects going for multiple months, building knowledge takes years.
for example I would not hire a mason with half a hand of houses build
not him but if the machine is planned to be identical, also mechanically, and the people responsible for it tell me it is mechanically identical, I have to assume as a programmer that it is identical. That happened a few times to me too and they made me check myself even if it's not my job.
>should be identical so I copy the parameters
moron alert
even when i build a clone alongside the original, parameters can differ in process critical places.
why? in machine building everything is custom, and nothing ever is made with the same tolerances or mounted friction fit instead of relying on dowel pins
[...]
lots of nuclear powerplants do
[...]
yea everyone is. i give new wire monkeys the benefit of doubt for two years, if they still suck after that its simply because they dont want to improve or be competent themself.
one only improves with projects done, and with projects going for multiple months, building knowledge takes years.
for example I would not hire a mason with half a hand of houses build
And yes you're right about tolerances and stuff at least on some machines but they should build the correct gearbox if it's a clone lol. When they sent me to check the problem it started because the client complained about using completely different values as in the other machine.
Was anyone here really awful at their job at first? I like learning this stuff but I'm having to find needing extra help with understanding the assignments now we're getting into the stuff past timers and math institutions, next course goes more into building processes with these commands
It takes a long time. When I first started working in the industry I felt like i didn't learn shit in school. Then a few years later I felt like I didn't know shit when I started. Now 7 years after I graduated I feel like I didn't know shit even a year ago. Always advancing, always learning, always expanding your horizons.
But yes when I started I felt like I knew nothing because I didn't. The number one protip is don't be the wienery guy that thinks he knows everything. Nobody likes that guy. School is but a small step in your journey. School is for learning. You'll get it, don't ever be ashamed of what it takes to make you learn.
Yeah I worked with robotic devices and it was soulsucking and I hardly learned anything. I work for a small scientific instrument + software shop and make like 80% more than I did with robots. If you are going for less education and don't mind the travel I think the technician path is pretty good. If you have a degree the job quality can be a bit low.
Was anyone here really awful at their job at first? I like learning this stuff but I'm having to find needing extra help with understanding the assignments now we're getting into the stuff past timers and math institutions, next course goes more into building processes with these commands
I'm a moron and didn't read your post. Keep at it and make sure you understand smaller fundamental examples. As long as you are not lazy and know where you struggle you can improve. I've seen people who have made scary stuff because they weren't that good and stopped giving a frick
>I'm a moron and didn't read your post. Keep at it and make sure you understand smaller fundamental examples.
I think that I need to just keep doing smaller projects with the AB500 that I have, next semester my instructor is going to teach us how to apply the PLC commands to actual processes on these trainer boards plus also program the Fanuc robot arm he has in the lab and summer semester I'll get to do some HMI programming and development in the SCADA class he offers.
>Yeah I worked with robotic devices and it was soulsucking and I hardly learned anything. I work for a small scientific instrument + software shop and make like 80% more than I did with robots. If you are going for less education and don't mind the travel I think the technician path is pretty good. If you have a degree the job quality can be a bit low.
Yeah I want to travel and don't mind living in a suitcase, I'll prob try to also buy a camper so that I can pocket the per diem monies.
Honestly would like to find a contractor that does new installs/commissioning, I'm torn between I&C and PLC/Robotics/HMI/DCS etc, I figure that not a single contractor does everything yeah?
Do you mean instrumentation & controls or installation & comissioning? Most PLC/DCS contractors do installation (or subcontract it) but most installation contractors don’t do PLC/DCS stuff in my experience.
Machine building companies do both and with a lot of travel normally (the one I work for only outsources mechanical and electrical when it’s very far away or cheaper to hire through client)
>Machine building companies do both and with a lot of travel normally (the one I work for only outsources mechanical and electrical when it’s very far away or cheaper to hire through client)
What are some machine building companies here in the US I should try to apply for when I get close to graduation?
Went and got a 2 year degree in it since my dad already worked in the field.
Was hired the first summer of school before I even graduated, had to do the last year of school while I was working.
I have some stuff, not on this phone though, so, laterz.
Anything I built, this goes into the (low) thousands of parts, perfectly worked the first time it was plugged in.
PLC shit? Anyone in here do this for a living? On rare occasion I get dragged into meetings with vendors that program/repair/upgrade/etc these and it seems like a racket. Always seems like there is one technical guy worth a damn, the rest totally worthless.
I see, is it a lot of copying/pasting code or are you actually programming these from scratch for specific builds at companies? I’m semi high level IT but always seemed like a niche.
So as in house programmer at a plant I assist with integrating new machinery, which happens maybe a couple times a year. Since we don't give contractors access to our systems for various reasons. So any communications between the new machine and our pre-existing infrastructure I setup. I also do work orders to improve or modify pre-existing machinery to fit what management currently demands. I also field calls from our techs needing help that only looking in the program can answer. My plant has about 100 or so individual processors and everything is highly interconnected.
I do. The vendors are definitely kind of a racket, pretty sure the big firms get kickbacks. But it’s also good for them to have just one brand for spare parts.
I do think Rockwell is in bed with the UL/safety guys because it’s only becoming more and more difficult to build a machine that passes all inspections without using Allen Bradley stuff in the US, while in other countries you can pick Siemens/Wago/Mitsubishi whatever components and still have it pass easily
I might just have baby duck syndrome since my entire career has been AB but I don't have any issue with it other than the price. As my boss used to say it's not your money.
I do. The vendors are definitely kind of a racket, pretty sure the big firms get kickbacks. But it’s also good for them to have just one brand for spare parts.
I do think Rockwell is in bed with the UL/safety guys because it’s only becoming more and more difficult to build a machine that passes all inspections without using Allen Bradley stuff in the US, while in other countries you can pick Siemens/Wago/Mitsubishi whatever components and still have it pass easily
So as in house programmer at a plant I assist with integrating new machinery, which happens maybe a couple times a year. Since we don't give contractors access to our systems for various reasons. So any communications between the new machine and our pre-existing infrastructure I setup. I also do work orders to improve or modify pre-existing machinery to fit what management currently demands. I also field calls from our techs needing help that only looking in the program can answer. My plant has about 100 or so individual processors and everything is highly interconnected.
[...]
I might just have baby duck syndrome since my entire career has been AB but I don't have any issue with it other than the price. As my boss used to say it's not your money.
Good information, it’s always been a grey area to me from my IT experience. We have a mid size piece of equipment that has a few PLCs, definitely not 100. I’m glad my vendor vibe isn’t totally off, I deal way too many of them across the board.
brainlet question
so you can connect a VFD to single phase and get 3 phase out, but you have to derate it by 65% or so
why cant you instead connect the two mains leads and connect ground to L3, and then isolate the system from ground.
wouldnt that make it only derated by 33%?
the reason it's derated is by only using two hot phases is you're not using the drives full complement of rectifiers. So it's incapable of running as much current
>brainlet question >so you can connect a VFD to single phase and get 3 phase out, but you have to derate it by 65% or so >why cant you instead connect the two mains leads and connect ground to L3, and then isolate the system from ground. >wouldnt that make it only derated by 33%?
Single phase is only 120/240v and 3 phase is 208/480v so you would need a transformer for one and where in the NEC is this derating rule you're talking about? Or is this some IEC engineering spec?
>hook it up to ground
Because ground is not supposed to be used as a current carrying conductor, are we talking about DC voltage? Or AC voltage?
I have 480v single phase. Just two wires, I have a transformer
The people that make the vfd say that if you use single phase that you must derate them
But it does not make sense if I am missing one wire why is it only 35% the power? Unless one lead is using the other for the return in which I could just connect ground and then it is able to use the full potential of each line
Could you draw that as a circuit diagram?
I have no idea what you are planning to do, also you don't run more than a few mA from filters and shit to ground.
I have 480v single phase. Just two wires, I have a transformer
The people that make the vfd say that if you use single phase that you must derate them
But it does not make sense if I am missing one wire why is it only 35% the power? Unless one lead is using the other for the return in which I could just connect ground and then it is able to use the full potential of each line
I think you mean neutral instead of ground.
When you go from 3ph to single phase, you are not losing one third of the power/energy. You are going from having:
L1-L2
L2-L3
L3-L1
to having:
L1-L2
Additionally, L1-L2 in single phase at 480V is going to have L1-L3 and L2-L3 be 240V. (Unless these are just two taps on a 3ph xfmr, it could be 277V, though technically, in exotic/odd wiring, it could vary wildly from there.) Your current into the VFD couldn’t be any higher for L1 or L2 than what it already is, even if you could overcome the voltage mismatch, which you couldn’t. Note that you should be able to connect L3 to neutral (NOT GROUND) and determine for yourself that you will get no additional power out of the VFD, though I don’t recommend that you do this.
Working with industrial automation hardware for a few years now. Picrel is what happens when you run the VFD in "fire mode" (ignore all limits) on full load and one of the three input phase breakers trips. One rectifier diode released all it's magic smoke.
should i take a job in controls in auto industry? would likely be at a supplier or integrator. i kind of want out of my desk job and worked in manufacturing years ago. also considered electrician, but plc shit seems like a good 5050
I went to a community college and got a 2 year degree in mechatronics but I can't find a job. Any tips or recommendations? Also, got any resources to brush up? It's been a year since I finished.
what positions are you applying for? Also the required credentials vary wildly plant to plant. As do the job requirements.
Like I'm an automation tech. At my plant that I means I do physical and program troubleshooting, motor repair, valve repair, sensor repair etc. Everything mechanics don't do because it has wires. The plant across town has electromechanics and an automation tech is a deskjob.
Maintenance technician jobs. I had an interview and plant walkthrough at a steel company but never got a call back. Frankly, I don't know why they bothered since they wanted someone with experience for that 100k+ a year job. That's the only interview I've gotten. Mazda-Toyota won't even bring me in for their assessment.
Well until recently you could have got a job at my plant easily. We're about to go through a corporate audit though since the plant is underperforming and maintenance over hired so they're probably about to get cut.
later there going to cry once equipment failure lasts longer due to less maintenance.
Auditors just see us watching video in the break room and think they can decrease hires. in reality maintenance chilling means we optimized everything to the max and nothing really breaks anymore, but that needs time if we have enough men someone is constantly tinkering and doing bug fixes in the plc, mechanics machining newer stronger parts etc.
if were at the minimum staff its constantly running around fixing two faults at the same time etc.
Rookie mistake to get caught riding dirty like that. You gotta set up your break room in the basement by the old conelrad shelter or something
5 months ago
Anonymous
the video was more of a metaphor,or shop has privacy windows and not even a door sign. in my opinion personal is hard to calculate and one to much is better than one not enough, if 3 machines break at the same time and were only 2 guys it costs so much downtime a third person would already be paid.
HR has computers and they look up how many ppl are sick have or are on vacation. My old boss would never decline demand for vacation so we were sometimes running the plant with 3 people, that can work for sometime but of course after someone left our department we didn't got someone new.
My current Boss knows the game and is very strict about keeping at least X people at work. if someone is sick and someone has training sorry you cant take vacation this week .
5 months ago
Anonymous
Trying to do anything with 3 people is always so dumb. Frick hr.
Barely holding down the fort, critical maintenance not being done but only one thing oos at a time usually...
Oh look, someone is sick/on disabilitt/takes vacation. Well great now we're fricked.
idk I think my plant legit overhired but we have separate maintenance and automation departments but that's just me. The whole plant has a quantity over quality problem. 3 dumbasses doesn't replace one actually good guy.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>The whole plant
more like the whole planet
5 months ago
Anonymous
pretty much
it's all ogre at this point
Just in the time I've worked their I've seen management pretty much collapse
Good morning I HATE PLCs, they're nothing but trouble, from entire programs being lost due to NVRAM battery garbage, obnoxius softwares to do basic debugging, buggy programs with no comments and last but not least braindead programmers putting copy protection on some one-off machine
Working with servo drives and CNCs is much better.
(1/2)
Engineer here, help me with PCN/OT network architecture before my bootstraps rip off
We have +100 manufacturing lines, most with multiple Class C subnets connected on Layer 2 switches. Internal integrators are hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of dollars buying new servers and licenses for each new line, going with new contractors on each one, retaining no skilled talent to manage it, and it is driving me up the wall.
We don't have an OT network, but we're now being required to integrate everything so management can start automating production data collection and analytics. Our engineers and maintenance staff barely know jack to program these things, and IT staff is running a 4-person skeleton crew for 1,200 people. The knowledgeable techs are screaming not to hook up anything because it won't be secure from other employees remoting in and destroying the lines from their office desks. Corporate is demanding it be wired securely on a shoestring budget. Engineering is begging to have our 15 year-old line-side servers updated so our Win2000/XP-ridden ATA/IDE HDDs with failing RAID 1 won't drag us into hell.
I know how to setup the network physically - install 2-port routers at each PCN, attach them to a Layer 3 switch, install application and data servers, firewall the hell out of it, and throw a DMZ up for our office monkeys to pull data from and generate their reports. I can go a step further and change us from our current structure (new servers and licenses on each line) to a centralized network where we run virtualized instances of our PLC programming software on some beefy production servers, provide zero clients for access at the lines, provide thin clients with PCI-passthrough for some more intensive lines, and we can implement role-based access security and management and asset control systems. I can even get maintenance their own alert system and PM and fault analysis software so they can start cutting down on emergency responses.
I'm utterly lost when it comes to the software, though. We have four different big names in our plant for controllers and hardware, but let's just pick even one to start. Rockwell AB has some series of FactoryTalk suites that are so muddled in marketing nonsense that I have an aneurysm attempting to parse through their website to find their tech docs. We need license manager(s), we need Studio5000, we need Linx (Gateway), we need Transaction Manager, we need View, we need Historian. I need a hug.
There is not documentation describing how to plot out your network architecture and utilize these licenses appropriately. My engineers and techs don't have enough IT experience to know how it can all interoperate across numerous systems, hence why we buy so many licenses. Our IT staff is chronically overworked, and they aren't trained on production software. I'm the only common link who can probably synthesize the knowledge and make something that works, but I am getting hung up on the lack of professional exposure and experience to these particular software suites. Does anyone here have this architect-level experience for designing and deploying such an OT network as I described, or do you have enough knowledge/wisdom to point out where it is going to fall apart?
>We don't have an OT network, but we're now being required to integrate everything so management can start automating production data collection and analytics.
Some kind of Industry 4.0 data collection thing?
I've implemented a few as a contractor for various customers, mostly interfacing to CNC machines, but also some PC-based machines and PLCs.
Initially I tried some piece of software shilled by my boss and it basically ate all the server resources just to read around 30 RS485 power meters and display pretty consumption graphs.
Most machines had no predisposition for this, and the ones that did had something called mtconnect with 400 page specs so I wrote everything from scratch using python and posgres databases.
It's all modular and split into independent programs each doing a different thing:
-machine: machine communication code, using manufacturer interface libaries, reverse engineered protocols or OPC-UA for some recent Schneider PLCs
-logger: reads and logs all machine and operator status
-barcode: allows tracking of the current work order trough barcode scanning, and automatically loads the required program/settings on the machine
-counter: tracks worked pieces and generates reports
-gui: allows interaction with the operator with a popup on windows pc or full screen interface on a dedicated pc
It runs both directy on the machine PCs from Win XP to 10, on Linux minipcs or directly on the server depending on type of the machines,
It has proven to be pretty reliable and expandable in 5 years of operation.
When I started I would rather have quit my job than deal with any of the commercial buzzwordfest garbage, good luck
It really activates your almonds when you discover the PLC can only handle one session and the default timeout is one hour, so if for any reason it's interrupted without properly terminating it you have to wait one hour before reconnecting.
We jam everything interesting into a 32 byte message structure/protocol that can be transmitted over anything from smoke signals to profinet until it reaches some edge device that speaks tcp/ip and let the IT boys figure out whatever they want to do with it from there on. It’s pretty sweet imo
>Some kind of Industry 4.0 data collection thing?
Bingo. >Initially I tried some piece of software shilled by my boss
And don't I know it. I was roped into administrating a kiddie playground SCADA by a predecessor I never met who ditched us for some lover in Mexico. My company gave him about tree fiddy to set up a trial on a few lines, and then demanded it be expanded to twenty times the original scope without additional funding. The software was designed for tech-illiterate office workers to whip up drag-and-drop HMIs, and the scripting isn't even supported by them. Bad news bears. I put my foot down and have discontinued all internal support for the project until this is reexamined by management for proper investment. Looks like it paid off too, we're getting our funding approved as of today.
Looks like my first step is going to be mapping existing control network topology for each line. I can start plotting the hardware infrastructure and give the engineers a time limit to list which devices require selective NAT to cross VLANs/subnets. After that, we'll set up our data center with the data collection goodies and a nice database server to toss all the raw, unformatted data in. Hopefully by this point we'll have an SQL wizard to tackle the best job security of his life to cook up some useful information from that pile while I prepare a DMZ to give our office access to processed data.
I'm sorry if I ramble, I have nobody else to talk to about this. It looks like you've put a ton of effort into massaging all the finer details at the control network level once it was transferrable data that made sense to mortals. If you would do me a kindness, I'd appreciate any resources you can direct me to so I can pour over documentation before I make a million dollar mistake diving into a world I know nothing about and have no mentor to teach me.
dont nat ab, use cisco l3
vlans are your friends
ull want igmp enabled
avoid opc ua it sucks no matter who makes it
as for a guide its called ethernet-to-the-factory but use it for topology design purposes and perform implementation on a bench first. ios revisions should all be the same or ull be sorry.
rockwell junk is easy but it only works well if network is setup right
Thanks for the input, I'm trying to convince purse holders to budget for star topology on the lines rather than nasty linear chains that are just ripe for failure and bottlenecking. I dream of taking a chainsaw to our current distribution switch stack cabling and gutting the whole plant to redo it properly.
IT-proper is cracking down on security issues now, so I've just been given a box of port plugs to block unauthorized plug-n-play behavior; that'll be circumvented in an instant...This project needs at least 4 additional people to complete in a timely manner, but I'm the only one they have at the moment. It's been over half a year of job postings and we can't get anyone through the door that isn't a Ph.D looking for a visa sponsorship or a fresh graduate looking for $140k plus in flyover country without a portfolio or tech experience beyond help desk. I'm not dissing them for the ask, but I know it's not going to happen.
nothing wrong with rings and plcs depends on what youre doing. rep is 50-150ms. hsr is 0ms. sure youre locked into 1gig ports (or maybe 10) but most industries dont use that much. bonus points each ring node is a new stp domain so make it root for all vlans. when i do this i like to use the alarm contacts on the switches and monitor the ring ports via control system io. star is great but its not redundant unless its a star of ether channels and for the love of god use lacp not ciscos abomination of it.
your guys networks sound very interesting
I'm no expert in that area but at my work all our HMIs are WonderWare. So we already have tag servers so getting info to management is pretty ez. Our SQL wizard is getting ready to retire though.
I built this system for my house water system. The vfd drives a submersible well pump which pumps into a holding tank with some float switches. Then a transfer pump in pic rel pumps the water to my main tanks that are by my huse a few hundred feet away. Ive made it so it is fully automated and keeps my tanks full and adds water as necessary. I know its not a plc cabinet but whatever.. its a homebrew system. Im adding another drive to replace yhe transfer pump contactor but havent yet because its a chinkshit drive from amazon and the terminations leave exposed wires so i need to fire up freecad and make an adapter and 3d print it but havent gotten around to doing it
>Im adding another drive to replace yhe transfer pump contactor
why
drives are expensive and a well is not a precise control loop
contractors are fine due
It was cheap on amazon. The amazon drive is not for the well. Its for the transfer pump. To eliminate the hard, sudd3n starting. So the motor ramps up and ramps down. >contractors are fine due
What?
meant contactors >To eliminate the hard, sudd3n starting. So the motor ramps up and ramps down.
that is only of concern if the motor has a high inertial load.
listen, nothing that doesnt trip the breaker on direct start is high inertia
5 months ago
Anonymous
Listen bro, that pump is pushing on a lot of water, several hundred linear feet going uphill to my tanks. Its heavy and the startup is high current. Im installing the drive to hopefully extend the life of the pump mptor because that pump motor was $400. I already have the drive. I intend to ramp it up on startup and ramp it down on stop to limit the inrush current. Ive already made the decision and i already posess the drive. Why are you giving me a hard time? Post your system that you made
For a while I worked at a small company basically building a special kind of particle accelerator used in research.
Millions for each machine, but actually built with all the best materials available and put together with precision as good as it comes.
Switzerland though. If it says "Made in Switzerland", it's probably decent at least.
Switzerland is a pretty cool guy, he made some early AC brushless servo drives with just plain transistors in the mid 80s and they still work to this day
https://i.imgur.com/emdt3ja.png
>$15k drive dies >install new one >Not braking correctly >Brake resistor lug came completely unbolted >bolt it back up >Blow up brand new $15k drive
Turns out the brake chopper was also bad and took out the DC bus on power up.
>25 year old VFD blows up for no reason (had already been repaired and recapped years prior) and burns down its braking resistor bank, literally because it was filled with wood scraps >install new VFD shilled and discounted by salesperson >it's a b***h to configure but it works >later discover motor has low torque near max speed >replace with trusted brand VFD >same torque issue >all this happens in the span of few months with various trial and error sessions >customer: "Oh yeah, that was the spare motor that had been rewound" >inductance values are all over the place compared to orignal motor
Always assume customer has fricked up something
Another >servo drive dies >order replacement with max priority shipment >install >customer restarts machine >while looking over the cabinet smell hot, after a while drive starts smoking >run over to controls to stop everything >notice customer had programmed a cycle that would move this axis continously back and forth at max speed >discovert they were behind schedule and need to fix some parts >install external resistor pack, problem solved
Don't you at least try to look for something that could have caused the fault, or is it (ideally) someone else's job? I mean if you replace a power supply or whatever only to find, after the new one blows, that the cables are chafed at the gland (making shit up here) then it's a waste of resources.
5 months ago
Anonymous
yes you're supposed to do that before even ordering the new drive, it might be still good, just unable to power up for more than 0.5ms because someone locked out the conveyer with vise grips
5 months ago
Anonymous
If someone locked out the conveyor with vice grips your drive is still going to power up, then it's going to give you an over current fault when you try to run it.
5 months ago
Anonymous
You can test the drive but all that's going to tell you is what you already know, yep, it's dead. That was obvious when none of the power lights or the screen came on and/or the fuses blew.
As they get older they die for various reasons without any real external cause. It's more common for one to just randomly die than it is for something to have actually gone wrong. Electrolytic capacitors go bad, diodes give up, etc.
Even the machine tech couldn't give me a test for the brake unit and it's not something I normally work with.
my instructor prob thinks I'm a moron because I didn't read the lab booklet instructions about using Force command as opposed to toggling but it was pretty funny the confused look he had on his face when I explained how I was toggling through the I/O of the machine states in RSLogix
You'd have to have an engineer design the micro-controllers for your very specific set-up/machines/robotics. That'd be very expensive and time consuming when talking about the scale most places operate at. You'd also have to retain them for any future updates and maintenance. Meanwhile, the PLCs you use are a standardized system that can be learned by technicians. The language PLCs use is very basic, ladder logic. Furthermore, PLCs are tried and tested in less than ideal environments typically found in manufacturing facilities.
Basically, it's overall cheaper and more effective to have lower level technicians maintain PLCs and their software than it is to hire higher level engineers to code/maintain micro-controllers.
Makes sense. But what's inside a PLC? probably some kind of a microcontroller with a bunch of I/O ports and tons of memory so it runs some kind of a real time OS that implements a layer of abstraction around the hardware and some special software that runs on top of it?
in its most bare form it is a gigantic main loop and you tell it what memory to load in which register and what instruction to perform inbetween. thats how you code it. The ladder anon spoke is just a visual abstraction for this
The os does the bus communication of sending the as io marked registers to the field i/o >But what's inside a PLC?
what a plc is not defined by its hardware but its operation principle
thats the same code written in two different languages.
left is ladder logic which is graphc and made to look like oldscool contactors, for example Button A connects +24V potential with X a contactors magnetic coil.
Right is the same code but text based Load A into accumulator 1 Store X it does the same.
honestly no idea, i dont know that specific syntax.
left colum is two load instructions before a bit operation, right colum is one load and a combined second load + bit operation.
5 months ago
Anonymous
what's with the two columns? crude instructions vs. optimized?
It’s iec 61131 instruction list. Has direct equivalence to Ladder as per the spec and easier to generate and interpret by computers. In Siemens Step7 you can (could?) convert instantly between the two. These days it is sometimes used by old style guys but mostly replaced by ST
You could, but PLCs give you real-time processing (not literally but look it up), redundancy, shock/moisture/interference/shorting/heat protection, fast dedicated communication buses and the hardware/software architecture to reach those sweet <2ms cycle times. A PC could do that but making the changes to get it to do that means you’re basically building a PLC but more expensive. Beckhoff does it, they ship what are basically toughened PCs with some softPLC software, but unless you really need PC features on board (to eg run SQL parallel to the PLC program) they are too expensive for most use cases
There is controllino which is basically an arduino with relays in a din rail mountable plc like form factor, but their reliability is terrible in heavy environments.
It depends on what the project is. For most industrial automation jobs a PLC gives you hardened IO (you can short out the 24V outputs and it wont immediately kill the entire board), and a programming environment with commonality (IEC 61131-3) and memory safety.
Other than that they're no different to a mcu or pc with a GPIO card. Depending on it's feature set it will either be a mcu or pc, gone are the days of custom chips or fancy real time operating systems, they are either translating the ladder into a bitstream that an interpreter runs (disgustingly slowly in the case of most mcu platforms) or cross compiling into a linux elf. >https://github.com/WAGO/cc100-firmware-sdk
Here's the source code for a small PLC using an application level SoC, it's basically a customised linux distro, the actual PLC part is the codesys runtime that sits on top, you can run that on basically anything, even windows.
For other things that aren't jellybean industrial tasks like robotics you are almost always better off using bespoke software for the task, for robotics in particular there are things like ROS (if you really hate yourself) and most of the fieldbuses that actually matter are open standards, so you can still use industrial components like servo drives or RS485 sensors without having to write much HAL code to talk to them.
Pic related could be programmed by a moron with a PLC because you only need to tell it where to go, but controlling each motor discreetly would make a lot more sense with a computer running a real time kernel because structured text is absolute dogshit.
> gone are the days of custom chips or fancy real time operating systems, they are either translating the ladder into a bitstream that an interpreter runs (disgustingly slowly in the case of most mcu platforms) or cross compiling into a linux elf.
How do you know this / when did it change? Are you turck anon?
I’m not doubting you I’m just wondering when eg Rockwell went from custom stuff to generic CPUs without telling us. They seem to be very secretive about their CPUs/architecture and my boss doesn’t like me enough to open up a plc to check what’s inside
Just lookup a particular PLC and someone somewhere has taken it apart. Big companies like Rockwell likely used some weird custom shit up until recently but only because it was stock on hand, certainly after covid fricking over everyone they have all redesigned to be as supplier neutral as possible.
Here's a modern controllogix board, granted not the most powerful PAC but a good representation of what most of the stuff people are dealing with day to day. The big unmarked chip in the middle is undoubtedly a ARM7 SoC, it might be binned such that it has similar environmental ratings to an automotive qualified chip (higher max t junction temperature, guaranteed part availability for 10+ years) but is otherwise no different to what's inside your home router, above it is some flash and below is a commodity SD card for OS and program, to the left is a FPGA, which is used as a multiplexer to break out the relatively small number of pins on the SoC into the dozens you would have on a single PLC module, do sampling/driving of ADC/DAC channels, and likely provide a means of converting a high speed serial bus to allow expanding the number of cards without burdening the CPU. For the more complicated PAC stuff it's all intel, you can buy real time qualified x86 CPUs, many companies make little embedded computes that use them. It just doesn't make sense to roll your own these days.
The guy before me had an AS in drafting or something like that, got fired for being lazy. The position was called Engineering Aide. Said I could do more in 3 hours than he could do in 3 days. I didn't even have experience in CAD though, just a willingness to learn, absorbed a lot of knowledge from the SCADA engineers.
>The guy before me had an AS in drafting or something like that, got fired for being lazy. The position was called Engineering Aide. Said I could do more in 3 hours than he could do in 3 days. I didn't even have experience in CAD though, just a willingness to learn, absorbed a lot of knowledge from the SCADA engineers.
Yeah I'm thinking I'll get my drafting degree after I'm finished with my instrumentation degree
> “commissioning always takes too long it’s always the software guys” > make new easier to commission software > “prove it om this small project anon” > come to test project site > shorts in the 24v circuit > missing phases > floor bolts on light barriers are seized > subpanel 24v transformer pinout is wrong on drawings > all safety relays are miswired > 16a a type fast blow breaker but we have 2kw motors
24V stuff didn’t get any power sk we measured the pins on the connector and the +24V was on 3-1 instead of 1-2. Then downloaded the manual of the transformer and saw that the 4-pin connector numbering was clockwise instead of row-wise and that the pins were assigned differently according to the manufacturer
> fire alarm input to system drops, goes into estop > faint red right flashes in corner of factory but it’s mostly taped off > has a siren under it that can’t be heard when the other machines run > ask them what’s happening > “yes anon fire alarm is broken it goes off all the time” > “please fix it so that it won’t switch the machine off” > safety signature matches, signed off and sealed and stuff > no can do.jpg > “just put some wires in the input card I’ve seen guys do it before” > suddenly the machine starts again by itself > someone rewired both reset and start button to auto reset safety > get to enjoy the rest of the day off while they bring it back into original state
everything eplosion protected, solvents, gasses, fuel, usually has a gateway to the firealert and shuts down. closes all valves and shuts off the ventilation fans closes shutters.
in my old plant the worst was to start up everything after the firefighters gave the building a all-clear all the ventilation was off and every room smelled like solvents, and it took almost an hour everything was ventilated with fresh air again.
>someone rewired both reset and start button to auto reset safety
just so you know, we do everything in our might to make that impossible nowadays.
why do techs confuse troubleshooting and fixing with circumventing crucial control loops
Can i use a contactor to control a 3 phase motor with a single phase switch? The relay is rated for 220vac. So if i wire L1 /T1 through A1/A2 as well, turning L1 off and on should also turn L2 and L3 off and on.
the switch goes to a1 and a2 to neutral, and all contacts on the contactor switch forced simultaneous (the main difference to a relay)
for a simple on off switch, usually a motor starter (eaton pkzm series) is the better option, equal cost, come with a case and have crude overload protection
You mean you connect L1 to switch input, and A1, and A2 to neutral right? If the switching current is 220VAC that would work, it’s unconventional though. Normally you’d keep L1-L3 live all the time, branch L1 to some sort of switch and use that as input for A1.
the switch goes to a1 and a2 to neutral, and all contacts on the contactor switch forced simultaneous (the main difference to a relay)
for a simple on off switch, usually a motor starter (eaton pkzm series) is the better option, equal cost, come with a case and have crude overload protection
Nice trips but I still prefer AB 100-C16 because they click clack so hard you can hear them with the cabinet closed
No, I meant what you said, branch l1 to a timer and thermostat and then use it as the input to a1.
the switch goes to a1 and a2 to neutral, and all contacts on the contactor switch forced simultaneous (the main difference to a relay)
for a simple on off switch, usually a motor starter (eaton pkzm series) is the better option, equal cost, come with a case and have crude overload protection
Hose it down
>Verification not required.
Looks extremely expensive. You just know each of those things was $200 at minimum.
Yes, but our VFDs are a bit bigger and mostly Allen Bradley components but also the occasional Siemens cabinet like yours. We make conveyor installations and palletising equipment
It’s true
the machines i work on use like a thousand fricking beckhoff modules...i think the cheapest ones are like $500 and there is one purely for licensing that is like 5k...possibly more.
>200 dollars is extremely expensive for some industrial equipment
Lolz
>blowing $50k+ on what amounts to $2000 worth of steel and parts is good business practice
Seems like a good thread to ask, I added a VFD to my 90s-made lathe, and it's next to a time delay switch (which was originally there to supply power to brakes if the e-stop is triggered, though this model has no brakes). Ever since the VFD was added, the time delay switch makes a ton of noise, as if it was rapidly triggering on and off, but ultimately it doesn't actually do anything bad, it just makes a ton of scratchy noise.
I removed some unused electronics in the process of adding the VFD, mostly for the coolant pump, I don't think those would be causing the issues. Tried putting ferrite cores on the wires to/from the VFD, didn't do much.
>Tried putting ferrite cores on the wires to/from the VFD, didn't do much.
well no shit
concerning your problem, since youre obviously an amateur who has no buiseness touching this shit, who knows what you fricked up to cause this issue
I'm sorry for not paying a specialist $1000 to install a $150 VFD into a $2000 lathe. The VFD introduces noise into the lines so I figured it's worth a shot with the cores. Could also be the VFD itself making EM noise that messes with it, but I don't have anywhere else to put it. I didn't do anything with any of the signal lines that go to the switch or come from the switch.
If you think it's interference from the chinkshit drive why don't you put a piece of metal between them and find out if it's RF or not.
I'll try it. Can't really cover it properly, but I guess it should make a difference if it's RF.
i start with the obvious
why dont you just disconnect it if it doesnt do anything
If I were to ever sell off the lathe, I'd prefer to have it closer to its original condition than not, and while removing it wouldn't be very hard, re-adding it would be. But yes, tossing it is an option.
Try bumping up the switching frequency in the drive
Remove the chattering switch and program a delay in your vfd nignog
Not op ,but are you saying voltage induction couldnt be an issue here?
I used to build panels. Was pretty comfy. Installation not so comfy.
You summon me?
ITT: guys who are paid to follow instructions that other guys prepared.
yes I am well versed in instructions
but I'm actually a repair tech/programmer not an installer
>programmer
And when you say this you actually means changing values in a .ini-file or clicking button looking switches in a GUI.
Nope AB processors
PLC 5, SLC 500, & CLX
>folding table stashed in panel
Nice
I'm paid to come up with these guy's instructions.
I'm fresh outta school and kinda shit, sorry lads.
>t. electrical engineer
I'm paid to make the paper to print these guys' instructions on. Sorry lads, I was shitposting instead of watching the reject machine and let a few shitty slices slip through to packaging.
>t. paper mill worker
>t. electrical engineer
I’m paid to instruct the electrical engineer which components I need and they spend 200 hours in eplan putting it together with wire numbers and shit. Then site team brings them the as built modifications to process and they spend another 100 hours in eplan.
I'm paid to keep the machines running that make the beer cans these anons drink their beer out of after a long day of flying into a white hot rage because they had to unfrick everything the engineers laid their grubby little fingers on
>I'm fresh outta school and kinda shit
dont worry anon, the old farts with 20 years under their belt are shit too.
you will always be hated by the coworkers lower in the foodchain
>close the cabinet and pray it never stops working
PLC 5 MASTER RACE
When men were men and knew addressing.
My N:1/0
Love it. Glad to see 5s still being useful. BTR/BTW and blue hose everywhere. It wasn't plug and play, but once it worked it never skipped a beat.
I'm out of the industry now, but I still got a 5/11 with an ENET sidecar and some SLC 5/04s in the barn waiting for a project.
Yep my plant still has about 15 PLC 5 processors. We're slowly replacing them but the last migration was kind of a shitshow so it might be awhile till the next one. We also have like 80 SLC 500.
And I thought we're bad with a 20yo AD plant running on SLCs still. Nice prices on CPUs these days lol
Two guys in my country founded a company some years ago that clears out old factories and buys old machinery and spares on auction. A replacement SLC in its box goes for €3k so I’m pretty sure they’re millionaires by now
tfw my plant hoards all the shit we pull when we do upgrades as spares for stuff we haven't upgraded yet
best thing to do,
we throw the stuff away because storage costs money (in reality our department pays money to a different department) this is so stupid but years ago some clever MBA calculated that trowing away parts saves storage costs and containers were filled with super rare S5s drives and other stuff and crushed.
the storage rooms are now empty and still cost the same real money as if they were full. but maintenance has to pay less money to the property department.
maintenance departments with lots of old stuff even have so called black storage where they putt in stuff "illegal" and leave it off the books, but that has the downside other departments in need can never find those parts in the spare part managing system.
my plant did some dumb shit too
we had a "junk" building where we had tons of spare parts and whole MCC sections and the whole lot
part of the building was converted to waste treatment so it became their building and they chucked all that stuff outside. So it all went to shit and NOS MCC sections that had been sitting in that building since the 90s got scrapped out.
the migration costs have been pretty bad. My plant got fricked over by inter plant politics by the engineering department so it's the last to get upgraded when the others did ten years ago.
Rockwell looked at the parts we requested to do an upgrade ourselves and basically told us to pound sand. They wouldn't sell us the new stuff in quantity. So we're having to do everything with integrators who have the stuff and can order it.
> Rockwell looked at the parts we requested to do an upgrade ourselves and basically told us to pound sand. They wouldn't sell us the new stuff in quantity. So we're having to do everything with integrators who have the stuff and can order it.
Thats so fricked.
They basically said that they don't have enough parts and that if they sold them to us they wouldn't have enough to supply other customers with needed spares. So basically they would sell us as many as they'll sell everyone else supposedly.
That’s probably because Rockwell (and others) are having a huge shortage and do triage. We’re a pretty big machine supplier and couldn’t get some stuff from Rockwell because it was in short supply. But the F500 client that the machines were for could order those same parts directly through them in like 2 weeks, plus everything they needed for future projects.
the oem who produced the rockwell cam controllers went belly up a few months ago
things are about to get spicy in 2024
>just build your own drives, bro
It's definitely bad. We started buying larger drives from toshiba since wait times on AB drives is 6 months.
I don't recommend the toshiba AS3s though they're kinda pieces of shit.
Yes, every day
Wow that's some old ass shit. I saw a brand new smc-3 soft start the other day on a newly installed machine, really boggled my noggin that companies still spec out soft starts in 2023
yep I work with a lot of old ass shit, lot of new shit too
surprisingly we haven't had to swap out any of those SMC Plus yet
unlike the smc dialog plus which we're slowly having to replace due to failures.
Bretty neat. I worked for a wood products company some years ago that had a ton of old shit laying around. Soft starts, line reactors fed from dual size 5 and 6 starters, ancient 1300 series drives, plc2 stuff. And the machinery had long since been upgraded, but they left all the old stuff in place. Reminded me of ancient Roman cities just being built over again and again lol. Also I love finding stupid shit like pic related and calling it out at morning meetings to see who just stuffed this in the box without mounting it.
So you put this
Into this
?
Who's going to clean this shit up?
I built panels for awhile. Had to field install some of them afterward. Never saw anything this bad.
No one. Bosses don't pay for us to make autistic wire art unless it's maybe the install.
The guys that messed it up should be disciplined but there's no budget to go and take down whatever shit is fucjed up in there and reroute it so it's nice.
As far as ik concerned crazy shit like that means the perpetrator is either on drugs, or doesnt know the very essentials on how to do his job. Either way I want him on the chopping block. It's not even just the final product of the wiring, I am certain to get to that point he wasn't troubleshooting, he was just changing shit at random and then after 12nhours it finally worked and everyone thought he was a genius. But it should've only taken 2 if he knew what he was doing
in my company all trouble shooting has to be done with a different colored wire than the cabinet.
once a year during yearly shutdown someone has to fix the shit and put a new wire laid nicely and update the wiring scheme.
are there any hard coded standards for proper wiring? paint-by-numbers tier? maybe that's the problem.
can't expect every overworked sparky to be a master artist for free
Yes.
The easiest would just be: Follow what everyone else is doing. Don't just fly across the entire box.
What you're supposed to do various slightly with manufacturer and exact box specs, but if you're conscientious you should be fine.
1. Don't cross over anything that wpuld interfere with future operation or removal of modules.
2. Follow any wire guides / trough /bundles available.
It's really not onerous or hard, just do follow what the original installer did.
>The easiest would just be: Follow what everyone else is doing. Don't just fly across the entire box.
>What you're supposed to do various slightly with manufacturer and exact box specs, but if you're conscientious you should be fine.
so that's a no then? why would you expect junkies and rednecks to give a shit
Wtf are you talking about. No one should be getting into one of those boxes for less than $35/hour.
If you do, you're not making enough.money
This is why when we build installations in the US, we bring our own hired electricians from Poland. They work harder and complain less for ~€18 an hour
and thats why the skilled poles say frick that and move back to europe where they get paid 35€
We had company standards and hired contractors to do most of the wiring. The ones who really cared and did excellent work were basically full time employees. Even if we didn't have much, we paid them so they wouldn't run off to another jobs. The shitty ones were never used again. The worse were banned forever.
Afaik no, even the UL inspectors don’t seem to care, only the clients do. There’s NEC 409 and another bunch of rules that say you can’t put too small cable tray, and too sharp corners, or have them hang loose, but afaik the routing itself is just how you want it. There are standards for cabinet layout tho
those are two entirely separate racks
the really bad one got like that over years of abuse and troubleshooting
>just get it running
band-AIDS on top of band-AIDS
it's a great example of a poor design. The panel is located inside the equipment low enough you have to be on your knees to work on it in a wet environment.
The panduit is way too close to the terminal blocks and it's very tight and crowded making it basically unusable. Which is why it ended up like this. There's 12 identical panels just like this.
I know someone who deals with these regularly... but he's not answering the phone at the moment for some reason.
I have to get bi yearly online recertification for low voltage safety norms and it always starts with this video. There’s also one of a guy who jump scares his electrician colleague, the guy jumps and gets 400V fried
S7 classic was pretty cool, it used the old windows gui so no mouse needed and you could navigate it with your eyes closed.
was he trying to turn super saiyan?
>Cable snobs HATE him!
I deal with the software
>haha little contact goes green and then the other one then big box green
So do I
Is allen bradley software also a slow, bloated mess like TIA? I only have experience with TIA, Codesys and a little Twincat
I'm on TIA 18 now and there is still no global replace. I work on automobile now and sometimes I just have to replace some silly word on a huge program. I'm still also waiting for dark themes on PLCs. to become popular. I've only seen it on Codesys, and only for SCL and FBD
been on tia 16 for two year now
didnt experience a crash in ages
while not snappy, our safety plc ide takes the cake for slow, worst software ive ever seen.
like imagine you delete a line, and after 10 seconds of freeze it removes a random network inside the function, but the fricking line is still there lol
> Is allen bradley software also a slow, bloated mess like TIA?
No, I do both TIA and Logix projects and Logix is decent. It’s fast, import/export system is miles ahead, occasionally crashes but not nearly as often as TIA does, global replace, configurable shortcuts are great.
The only downsides imo are that FT View (the HMI building program) is very poor in terms of usability, and you still can’t online edit AOIs. It’s my favourite after step7 classic
Is it ASiMon?
I configured a bunch of SMC3s last year. Low budget installation, single direction single speed motor. They’re pretty nice to work with and in my experience don’t fail as much as people say they do.
We do used to have a lot of 525s fail in the past because apparently nobody told the hardware guys that you’re not supposed to cut the supply voltage while they are running.
>Is it ASiMon?
LOOOOL Did i just dox myself
Nah I used to sit next to the guy at our company that did a lot of Asimon stuff. At random times, the program would crash and he’d just lock his computer, get up, walk out and take the rest of the day off
lol might want to weld the door closed for safety reasons
Only to us poor bastards that have to deal with your shit TiA/ASiMON equipment inside. I just wish this Mitsubishi stuff was better.
>We do used to have a lot of 525s fail in the past because apparently nobody told the hardware guys that you’re not supposed to cut the supply voltage while they are running.
Good point. Sux ass because people love to retrofit old starters with them, and then leave the existing control relays in place so the line voltage is constantly dropping out every time something stops. Very annoying tbh, it's not that hard to pull six new wires and segment that shit!
depends which one it is. The older ones are fast to open and good in general. Studio 5000 opens slow as frick and is slow to accept edits but otherwise good
Tia portal sucks ass. UI is decent but is heavy af. You give that mf good hardware, and it still lags and crashes.
posting.
exploded SCR in a servo drive.
mmmm mercury
lol oops.
why is nothing labeled, literally warcrime
I don't make em. I just fix, troubleshoot and modify them as needed.
Lot of red there, you should check the wiring
What manufacturer of the drive? I tell you it's not Fanuc, since I work on them.
Lenze. Second time this has happened.
This cabinet runs a little hot tbh.
I also have a lot of drives going to shit because of failing electrolytic caps. Numerous rexroth indramat drives from the late 90's iirc.The ones with the fiber optic SERCOS interface.
after 20-30 years electronic a shit just becomes a nightmare, it runs fine for years without any fault because every bug got fixed at some point.
but even looking at it wrong and it dies without a visible reason. and then good luck finding a spare part.
>Lenze. Second time this has happened.
My guess was Mitsubishi, guess I was wrong. That said I have only seen a few SCRs blown in my life and they usually cause by bad regen phases in power supplies. Majority of time is IPMs, and once in a while a large cap that decides to go frick it. Fanuc isn't safe from problems tho, especially their C-series and Beta line.
>Hey let's put the cooling fan right next to 244 leg processor chip, what can go wrong?
lol we have several of those Beta pieces of shit. I keep a few on the shelf because of how often they act up.
Panel builders, how may things are wrong here?
looks fine to me, not a fan of fuses without any disconnect though. I don't usually carry my fuse puller so I prefer ones that I can isolate more easily. Like the little rock out ones
I've better question. What sort of scary jobsite accident did happen there? So scary that somebody sharted all over the door.
vortex cooler with inadequate oil separator
Is there a game that teaches this stuff? I don't wanna drop several grand on this boomertech IRL, but it looks like the kinda autism Zachtronics would do
canadu.com/
I'm paid to make the boxes these guys' ship the products in.
>t, box factory worker
Question, is it possible for aging contractors to start creating flyback voltage and damaging PLC output relays? Cuz I have a weird situation like this.
100% yes. Are the contacts in the open or a clear relay case? see if there is ecm build up on the contacts
Why is it seemingly a rare occurrence? There are plenty of contractors out there wired straight to PLC output relays but 99.999% of them are fine. This one was fine for years until recently.
Putting in an isolation relay stopped it from blowing up more PLC outputs.
>Question, is it possible for aging contractors to start creating flyback voltage and damaging PLC output relays? Cuz I have a weird situation like this.
when switching Contactors with plcs you should add a flyback diode. siemens has some that plug right in the Siemens contactors
should/ you need to
then watch them diodes. About 20 years ago Finder gave us a series that started blowing up after 2 years.
You're like that autistic plumbing skid guy, only for electronics instead.
I'm an old timey machinist and I don't have a single computer in my shop other than the ancient ThinkPad I send emails on. Wandering into this thread feels like looking at alien space ship equipment.
wait till you open the flap behind the isolator switch on your lathe, especially if its english, they have some real nice kit
I largely ignore the engineer stupid ideas when I program a new job. I write out a bullshit sequence of operations to get them to sign off. I don't want to take calls from dimwitted maintenence men all day.
I’ve spent enough time in both commissioning and standardisation to know that all of you guys do this. Never reading any docs, building the same ‘loops’ and ‘algorithms’ every damn time while there’s a perfectly tested, documented, version controlled implementation in the library.
If you change my block signatures have fun writing the client documentation and test reports yourself in 3 languages
our in house library is so fricking dogshit and ever since they hired an army of graduates they decided to turn it into an endless see of micro functions that no sane person can overlook anymore.
almost like the mobile app cancer, 300mb for a bubble level app
like do they know we build the same fricking machine on 1990s hardware in 3000 lines of code? difference is back then they did it in a month or two, not two years with result yet to be seen
I dealt with the same mess you came from. But there’s an other side to that, which is some old guys love to ship untested shit and spend literal months on site to ‘fine tune’ their latest brilliant change.
Commissioning hours through the roof because Barry had to improve his self invented sorting routine which he absolutely refuses to document and now divides by zero at full moon
I have a love hate relationship with Siemens.
I was learning about BACnet today because climate control sensors have been dropping out of our BMS system. Trying to figure out if there’s something like a profitrace I can do.
YABE, or if life really sucks, wireshark. Assuming you do BACNET over IP.
>I was learning about BACnet today because climate control sensors have been dropping out of our BMS system. Trying to figure out if there’s something like a profitrace I can do.
I'm about to go work in hvac controls installing automation equipment, what am I in for?
knocking tin and never actually using your brain
>knocking tin and never actually using your brain
I'm not going to be doing any of the mechanical stuff though, I have an electrical background.
And what exactly requires brain power? Even the electrical code accomodates hvac techs cause their not real electricians and requires local disconnects. As for the controls its all so stupid simple your only advantage over the customer is the dongle required to access the controller.You can always dazzle em by saying "psychometric" or "tempered air". Ive yet to meet an hvac rep with more than 2 shit nuggets between their ears all they know is what carrier and trane sells them not actual solutions. Cushy job if youre a smooth brain.
I'm going to be working with Schneider Electric building automation and hvac control systems.
Speaking of local disconnects. Does the line of sight disconnect rule apply in an industrial setting or is there an exemption?
>Does the line of sight disconnect rule apply in an industrial setting or is there an exemption?
what do you mean by industrial setting? hazardous location? yes it still applies
line of site disconnect for hvac weenies applies for all hvac equip running over 120/240. commercial or industrial the hvac weenie must be protected by a burly sparky. yes its that gay
In industrial? Be ready to climb a lot of stairs and then some ladders then crouch under two pipes take another ladder and attach the fall guard before you can access a panel or check some wiring.
Factories prefer their hvac stuff to be as inaccessible as possible to leave room for forklifts, machines and shelving units. Also you may need to explain to multiple people daily that the heating works but it’s cold because someone left the bay doors open again Other than that it’s pretty nice.
Not a hvac tech myself but that’s what I hear from the hvac bros when we do an on site install
well you quoted like 10 things which do a bunch of different things
pick one and I'll give you the low down
Wild ass guess: logic controllers for industrial machinery like conveyers, robots, and other fun stuff?
*golf clap*
I've never seen a 3 in person
looks cool though
And I thought 5s were old. Is this thing still in production?
Endless supply of ebay spares? Even the tiniest thought to replace it?
PLC 5 isn't even in production anymore
PLC 3 has been fully discontinued since like 2002
It was running on broadway show until earlier this year
Could be worse...
You could be working for Zeppelin Systems in Odessa,FL
Yes. I do, I can pin point every single component in there. Industrial automation is peak autism, ladder programming is the autism of programing.
>all this nice, neat wiring
I love you guys. I keep threatening to clean up the rats nest that is our network at work.
Anyone know what this does?
well it was a telephone thing but it's no longer plugged in
Old PBX?
>I love you guys. I keep threatening to clean up the rats nest that is our network at work.
Your problem is technical people who are lazy and figure they can always sort it out if needed. My customers are mostly non-technical people with a rat's nest made by several different lazy technical people over the course of decades. They pay me to clean it up and they're bloody happy when it's done.
Pros of cleanup the old stuff: pretty
Autism satisfied.
Cons: oh whoops. The guy in the other unit that shares this closet was still us8ng that pbx, music system, t1, whatever...
No one's paying me to remove stuff anyway. I'd l love to have a job cleaning up wire closets.
anyone still running S5?
I've thankfully never had to work on Siemens stuff
In Fanuc in world, that's the literal anti christ there.
>then good luck finding a spare part.
It gets better with any OEM. Fanuc loves to discontinued parts for their modern drives for no reason at all other than to sell you their next line of drives. That Alpha series spindle amp needs new current detectors? Well frick you, we don't make those anymore, but the customer can upgrade to a new machine with Alpha i controls, because the i stands for idiots, cause you're idiot for falling for our bullshit.
Had to troubleshoot a client on this one time.
As a zoomer I never work with S5 before so it was hell. Thankfully the program was printed (list, german comment)
Only few old automacion technician know how to propely work with it at my job.
>Wire spaghetti.
>No labels.
Seriously triggering my OCD to have everything labeled and routed neatly.
You havent seen the worst of it.
The bottom of the cabinet was full of chips and i drained like 2 liters of oil/coolant. I think the machine was fixed a couple of times while being full of chips, because i found chips next to the wires going into terminal blocks. Half of the wires and contactors are not even used lol.
Also pic related, wires melted together due hot conductors.
>wires melted together
>drained 2l of coolant
sounds like you should put it back
>install new drive in machine #2
>machine 1 & 2 should be identical so I copy the parameters from #1
>drive #2 now reports that the motor is running double the speed of machine #1
>spend lots of time checking inputs and parameters
installed a gearbox in machine 2 that's 2x the ratio of machine 1
>should be identical so I copy the parameters
moron alert
even when i build a clone alongside the original, parameters can differ in process critical places.
why? in machine building everything is custom, and nothing ever is made with the same tolerances or mounted friction fit instead of relying on dowel pins
lots of nuclear powerplants do
yea everyone is. i give new wire monkeys the benefit of doubt for two years, if they still suck after that its simply because they dont want to improve or be competent themself.
one only improves with projects done, and with projects going for multiple months, building knowledge takes years.
for example I would not hire a mason with half a hand of houses build
I'm actually a journeyman electrician by trade so maybe I'm just suffering from impostor syndrome but this stuff is just on a whole other level but you're right and I'm letting some of the autistics I know that work in stem get the best of me lol
>lots of nuclear powerplants do
a few years ago a nuke plant asked for PDP-11 programmers on vintage computer federation saying they plan to run them till 2050. they control material handling robots ore some stuff with it.
>moron alert
Yea, maybe. But I really don't want to teach myself all the details of this ancient drive from 1995 when this is probably the only time I'm ever going to touch it. I might program 1 drive a year if I'm lucky.
And it's not a situation where it's going to frick something up if it's wrong.
and speaking of gearboxes... In a machine that has probably 12 + gearboxes that are all supposed to run the same speed someone installed a box that was like 5.27:1 instead of 5:1 probably because the 5:1 was NLA. Works fine for99% of stuff but certain jobs would stress the motor and annoy the drive.
not him but if the machine is planned to be identical, also mechanically, and the people responsible for it tell me it is mechanically identical, I have to assume as a programmer that it is identical. That happened a few times to me too and they made me check myself even if it's not my job.
And yes you're right about tolerances and stuff at least on some machines but they should build the correct gearbox if it's a clone lol. When they sent me to check the problem it started because the client complained about using completely different values as in the other machine.
Was anyone here really awful at their job at first? I like learning this stuff but I'm having to find needing extra help with understanding the assignments now we're getting into the stuff past timers and math institutions, next course goes more into building processes with these commands
It takes a long time. When I first started working in the industry I felt like i didn't learn shit in school. Then a few years later I felt like I didn't know shit when I started. Now 7 years after I graduated I feel like I didn't know shit even a year ago. Always advancing, always learning, always expanding your horizons.
But yes when I started I felt like I knew nothing because I didn't. The number one protip is don't be the wienery guy that thinks he knows everything. Nobody likes that guy. School is but a small step in your journey. School is for learning. You'll get it, don't ever be ashamed of what it takes to make you learn.
Thnx for the kind words my friend.
Yeah I worked with robotic devices and it was soulsucking and I hardly learned anything. I work for a small scientific instrument + software shop and make like 80% more than I did with robots. If you are going for less education and don't mind the travel I think the technician path is pretty good. If you have a degree the job quality can be a bit low.
I'm a moron and didn't read your post. Keep at it and make sure you understand smaller fundamental examples. As long as you are not lazy and know where you struggle you can improve. I've seen people who have made scary stuff because they weren't that good and stopped giving a frick
>I'm a moron and didn't read your post. Keep at it and make sure you understand smaller fundamental examples.
I think that I need to just keep doing smaller projects with the AB500 that I have, next semester my instructor is going to teach us how to apply the PLC commands to actual processes on these trainer boards plus also program the Fanuc robot arm he has in the lab and summer semester I'll get to do some HMI programming and development in the SCADA class he offers.
>Yeah I worked with robotic devices and it was soulsucking and I hardly learned anything. I work for a small scientific instrument + software shop and make like 80% more than I did with robots. If you are going for less education and don't mind the travel I think the technician path is pretty good. If you have a degree the job quality can be a bit low.
Yeah I want to travel and don't mind living in a suitcase, I'll prob try to also buy a camper so that I can pocket the per diem monies.
Honestly would like to find a contractor that does new installs/commissioning, I'm torn between I&C and PLC/Robotics/HMI/DCS etc, I figure that not a single contractor does everything yeah?
Do you mean instrumentation & controls or installation & comissioning? Most PLC/DCS contractors do installation (or subcontract it) but most installation contractors don’t do PLC/DCS stuff in my experience.
Machine building companies do both and with a lot of travel normally (the one I work for only outsources mechanical and electrical when it’s very far away or cheaper to hire through client)
>Machine building companies do both and with a lot of travel normally (the one I work for only outsources mechanical and electrical when it’s very far away or cheaper to hire through client)
What are some machine building companies here in the US I should try to apply for when I get close to graduation?
Your pic is to big for my PC RAM, sorry OP, I can't help you.
>t
How did you guys get into controls? University/Tech College?, Industrial Trades program? Certifications?
Went and got a 2 year degree in it since my dad already worked in the field.
Was hired the first summer of school before I even graduated, had to do the last year of school while I was working.
I have some stuff, not on this phone though, so, laterz.
Anything I built, this goes into the (low) thousands of parts, perfectly worked the first time it was plugged in.
where are the snakes and wasps? how does a plc work without dirt daubers?
>"Hello my fellow autists, of which I am a part of, could you please diagnose my electrical problems?"
PLC shit? Anyone in here do this for a living? On rare occasion I get dragged into meetings with vendors that program/repair/upgrade/etc these and it seems like a racket. Always seems like there is one technical guy worth a damn, the rest totally worthless.
I do but I'm an in house guy. So I get stuck fixing whatever crap the vendors delivered so it actually performs in process.
I see, is it a lot of copying/pasting code or are you actually programming these from scratch for specific builds at companies? I’m semi high level IT but always seemed like a niche.
So as in house programmer at a plant I assist with integrating new machinery, which happens maybe a couple times a year. Since we don't give contractors access to our systems for various reasons. So any communications between the new machine and our pre-existing infrastructure I setup. I also do work orders to improve or modify pre-existing machinery to fit what management currently demands. I also field calls from our techs needing help that only looking in the program can answer. My plant has about 100 or so individual processors and everything is highly interconnected.
I might just have baby duck syndrome since my entire career has been AB but I don't have any issue with it other than the price. As my boss used to say it's not your money.
I do. The vendors are definitely kind of a racket, pretty sure the big firms get kickbacks. But it’s also good for them to have just one brand for spare parts.
I do think Rockwell is in bed with the UL/safety guys because it’s only becoming more and more difficult to build a machine that passes all inspections without using Allen Bradley stuff in the US, while in other countries you can pick Siemens/Wago/Mitsubishi whatever components and still have it pass easily
Good information, it’s always been a grey area to me from my IT experience. We have a mid size piece of equipment that has a few PLCs, definitely not 100. I’m glad my vendor vibe isn’t totally off, I deal way too many of them across the board.
Frick that shit. The guy hooking up the cables and terminations make more money than the guy commissioning these panels.
I did, but was never really that good. Did some general survey/red lines for these systems and worked and retrofitting some relays in pharma plant.
brainlet question
so you can connect a VFD to single phase and get 3 phase out, but you have to derate it by 65% or so
why cant you instead connect the two mains leads and connect ground to L3, and then isolate the system from ground.
wouldnt that make it only derated by 33%?
the reason it's derated is by only using two hot phases is you're not using the drives full complement of rectifiers. So it's incapable of running as much current
>brainlet question
>so you can connect a VFD to single phase and get 3 phase out, but you have to derate it by 65% or so
>why cant you instead connect the two mains leads and connect ground to L3, and then isolate the system from ground.
>wouldnt that make it only derated by 33%?
Single phase is only 120/240v and 3 phase is 208/480v so you would need a transformer for one and where in the NEC is this derating rule you're talking about? Or is this some IEC engineering spec?
>hook it up to ground
Because ground is not supposed to be used as a current carrying conductor, are we talking about DC voltage? Or AC voltage?
I have 480v single phase. Just two wires, I have a transformer
The people that make the vfd say that if you use single phase that you must derate them
But it does not make sense if I am missing one wire why is it only 35% the power? Unless one lead is using the other for the return in which I could just connect ground and then it is able to use the full potential of each line
I'm not sure where you get your 35% from but this is an example when you're sizing your wire for a single phase motor branch circuit
But when in doubt just go with the next wire size up
Do you have your overload and overcurrent protection sized correctly?
Could you draw that as a circuit diagram?
I have no idea what you are planning to do, also you don't run more than a few mA from filters and shit to ground.
I think you mean neutral instead of ground.
When you go from 3ph to single phase, you are not losing one third of the power/energy. You are going from having:
L1-L2
L2-L3
L3-L1
to having:
L1-L2
Additionally, L1-L2 in single phase at 480V is going to have L1-L3 and L2-L3 be 240V. (Unless these are just two taps on a 3ph xfmr, it could be 277V, though technically, in exotic/odd wiring, it could vary wildly from there.) Your current into the VFD couldn’t be any higher for L1 or L2 than what it already is, even if you could overcome the voltage mismatch, which you couldn’t. Note that you should be able to connect L3 to neutral (NOT GROUND) and determine for yourself that you will get no additional power out of the VFD, though I don’t recommend that you do this.
Working with industrial automation hardware for a few years now. Picrel is what happens when you run the VFD in "fire mode" (ignore all limits) on full load and one of the three input phase breakers trips. One rectifier diode released all it's magic smoke.
PCB of said VFD. Featuring torn layers and floating components.
should i take a job in controls in auto industry? would likely be at a supplier or integrator. i kind of want out of my desk job and worked in manufacturing years ago. also considered electrician, but plc shit seems like a good 5050
I went to a community college and got a 2 year degree in mechatronics but I can't find a job. Any tips or recommendations? Also, got any resources to brush up? It's been a year since I finished.
what positions are you applying for? Also the required credentials vary wildly plant to plant. As do the job requirements.
Like I'm an automation tech. At my plant that I means I do physical and program troubleshooting, motor repair, valve repair, sensor repair etc. Everything mechanics don't do because it has wires. The plant across town has electromechanics and an automation tech is a deskjob.
Maintenance technician jobs. I had an interview and plant walkthrough at a steel company but never got a call back. Frankly, I don't know why they bothered since they wanted someone with experience for that 100k+ a year job. That's the only interview I've gotten. Mazda-Toyota won't even bring me in for their assessment.
Well until recently you could have got a job at my plant easily. We're about to go through a corporate audit though since the plant is underperforming and maintenance over hired so they're probably about to get cut.
the same in my plant to.
later there going to cry once equipment failure lasts longer due to less maintenance.
Auditors just see us watching video in the break room and think they can decrease hires. in reality maintenance chilling means we optimized everything to the max and nothing really breaks anymore, but that needs time if we have enough men someone is constantly tinkering and doing bug fixes in the plc, mechanics machining newer stronger parts etc.
if were at the minimum staff its constantly running around fixing two faults at the same time etc.
Rookie mistake to get caught riding dirty like that. You gotta set up your break room in the basement by the old conelrad shelter or something
the video was more of a metaphor,or shop has privacy windows and not even a door sign. in my opinion personal is hard to calculate and one to much is better than one not enough, if 3 machines break at the same time and were only 2 guys it costs so much downtime a third person would already be paid.
HR has computers and they look up how many ppl are sick have or are on vacation. My old boss would never decline demand for vacation so we were sometimes running the plant with 3 people, that can work for sometime but of course after someone left our department we didn't got someone new.
My current Boss knows the game and is very strict about keeping at least X people at work. if someone is sick and someone has training sorry you cant take vacation this week .
Trying to do anything with 3 people is always so dumb. Frick hr.
Barely holding down the fort, critical maintenance not being done but only one thing oos at a time usually...
Oh look, someone is sick/on disabilitt/takes vacation. Well great now we're fricked.
idk I think my plant legit overhired but we have separate maintenance and automation departments but that's just me. The whole plant has a quantity over quality problem. 3 dumbasses doesn't replace one actually good guy.
>The whole plant
more like the whole planet
pretty much
it's all ogre at this point
Just in the time I've worked their I've seen management pretty much collapse
Good morning I HATE PLCs, they're nothing but trouble, from entire programs being lost due to NVRAM battery garbage, obnoxius softwares to do basic debugging, buggy programs with no comments and last but not least braindead programmers putting copy protection on some one-off machine
Working with servo drives and CNCs is much better.
(1/2)
Engineer here, help me with PCN/OT network architecture before my bootstraps rip off
We have +100 manufacturing lines, most with multiple Class C subnets connected on Layer 2 switches. Internal integrators are hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of dollars buying new servers and licenses for each new line, going with new contractors on each one, retaining no skilled talent to manage it, and it is driving me up the wall.
We don't have an OT network, but we're now being required to integrate everything so management can start automating production data collection and analytics. Our engineers and maintenance staff barely know jack to program these things, and IT staff is running a 4-person skeleton crew for 1,200 people. The knowledgeable techs are screaming not to hook up anything because it won't be secure from other employees remoting in and destroying the lines from their office desks. Corporate is demanding it be wired securely on a shoestring budget. Engineering is begging to have our 15 year-old line-side servers updated so our Win2000/XP-ridden ATA/IDE HDDs with failing RAID 1 won't drag us into hell.
I know how to setup the network physically - install 2-port routers at each PCN, attach them to a Layer 3 switch, install application and data servers, firewall the hell out of it, and throw a DMZ up for our office monkeys to pull data from and generate their reports. I can go a step further and change us from our current structure (new servers and licenses on each line) to a centralized network where we run virtualized instances of our PLC programming software on some beefy production servers, provide zero clients for access at the lines, provide thin clients with PCI-passthrough for some more intensive lines, and we can implement role-based access security and management and asset control systems. I can even get maintenance their own alert system and PM and fault analysis software so they can start cutting down on emergency responses.
I'm utterly lost when it comes to the software, though. We have four different big names in our plant for controllers and hardware, but let's just pick even one to start. Rockwell AB has some series of FactoryTalk suites that are so muddled in marketing nonsense that I have an aneurysm attempting to parse through their website to find their tech docs. We need license manager(s), we need Studio5000, we need Linx (Gateway), we need Transaction Manager, we need View, we need Historian. I need a hug.
There is not documentation describing how to plot out your network architecture and utilize these licenses appropriately. My engineers and techs don't have enough IT experience to know how it can all interoperate across numerous systems, hence why we buy so many licenses. Our IT staff is chronically overworked, and they aren't trained on production software. I'm the only common link who can probably synthesize the knowledge and make something that works, but I am getting hung up on the lack of professional exposure and experience to these particular software suites. Does anyone here have this architect-level experience for designing and deploying such an OT network as I described, or do you have enough knowledge/wisdom to point out where it is going to fall apart?
>We don't have an OT network, but we're now being required to integrate everything so management can start automating production data collection and analytics.
Some kind of Industry 4.0 data collection thing?
I've implemented a few as a contractor for various customers, mostly interfacing to CNC machines, but also some PC-based machines and PLCs.
Initially I tried some piece of software shilled by my boss and it basically ate all the server resources just to read around 30 RS485 power meters and display pretty consumption graphs.
Most machines had no predisposition for this, and the ones that did had something called mtconnect with 400 page specs so I wrote everything from scratch using python and posgres databases.
It's all modular and split into independent programs each doing a different thing:
-machine: machine communication code, using manufacturer interface libaries, reverse engineered protocols or OPC-UA for some recent Schneider PLCs
-logger: reads and logs all machine and operator status
-barcode: allows tracking of the current work order trough barcode scanning, and automatically loads the required program/settings on the machine
-counter: tracks worked pieces and generates reports
-gui: allows interaction with the operator with a popup on windows pc or full screen interface on a dedicated pc
It runs both directy on the machine PCs from Win XP to 10, on Linux minipcs or directly on the server depending on type of the machines,
It has proven to be pretty reliable and expandable in 5 years of operation.
When I started I would rather have quit my job than deal with any of the commercial buzzwordfest garbage, good luck
oh how i hate integrating opc-ua
two days of work solely for mr bossman logging the
>machine running
bool variable and ignoring everything else
It really activates your almonds when you discover the PLC can only handle one session and the default timeout is one hour, so if for any reason it's interrupted without properly terminating it you have to wait one hour before reconnecting.
We jam everything interesting into a 32 byte message structure/protocol that can be transmitted over anything from smoke signals to profinet until it reaches some edge device that speaks tcp/ip and let the IT boys figure out whatever they want to do with it from there on. It’s pretty sweet imo
>Some kind of Industry 4.0 data collection thing?
Bingo.
>Initially I tried some piece of software shilled by my boss
And don't I know it. I was roped into administrating a kiddie playground SCADA by a predecessor I never met who ditched us for some lover in Mexico. My company gave him about tree fiddy to set up a trial on a few lines, and then demanded it be expanded to twenty times the original scope without additional funding. The software was designed for tech-illiterate office workers to whip up drag-and-drop HMIs, and the scripting isn't even supported by them. Bad news bears. I put my foot down and have discontinued all internal support for the project until this is reexamined by management for proper investment. Looks like it paid off too, we're getting our funding approved as of today.
Looks like my first step is going to be mapping existing control network topology for each line. I can start plotting the hardware infrastructure and give the engineers a time limit to list which devices require selective NAT to cross VLANs/subnets. After that, we'll set up our data center with the data collection goodies and a nice database server to toss all the raw, unformatted data in. Hopefully by this point we'll have an SQL wizard to tackle the best job security of his life to cook up some useful information from that pile while I prepare a DMZ to give our office access to processed data.
I'm sorry if I ramble, I have nobody else to talk to about this. It looks like you've put a ton of effort into massaging all the finer details at the control network level once it was transferrable data that made sense to mortals. If you would do me a kindness, I'd appreciate any resources you can direct me to so I can pour over documentation before I make a million dollar mistake diving into a world I know nothing about and have no mentor to teach me.
dont nat ab, use cisco l3
vlans are your friends
ull want igmp enabled
avoid opc ua it sucks no matter who makes it
as for a guide its called ethernet-to-the-factory but use it for topology design purposes and perform implementation on a bench first. ios revisions should all be the same or ull be sorry.
rockwell junk is easy but it only works well if network is setup right
Thanks for the input, I'm trying to convince purse holders to budget for star topology on the lines rather than nasty linear chains that are just ripe for failure and bottlenecking. I dream of taking a chainsaw to our current distribution switch stack cabling and gutting the whole plant to redo it properly.
IT-proper is cracking down on security issues now, so I've just been given a box of port plugs to block unauthorized plug-n-play behavior; that'll be circumvented in an instant...This project needs at least 4 additional people to complete in a timely manner, but I'm the only one they have at the moment. It's been over half a year of job postings and we can't get anyone through the door that isn't a Ph.D looking for a visa sponsorship or a fresh graduate looking for $140k plus in flyover country without a portfolio or tech experience beyond help desk. I'm not dissing them for the ask, but I know it's not going to happen.
nothing wrong with rings and plcs depends on what youre doing. rep is 50-150ms. hsr is 0ms. sure youre locked into 1gig ports (or maybe 10) but most industries dont use that much. bonus points each ring node is a new stp domain so make it root for all vlans. when i do this i like to use the alarm contacts on the switches and monitor the ring ports via control system io. star is great but its not redundant unless its a star of ether channels and for the love of god use lacp not ciscos abomination of it.
your guys networks sound very interesting
I'm no expert in that area but at my work all our HMIs are WonderWare. So we already have tag servers so getting info to management is pretty ez. Our SQL wizard is getting ready to retire though.
just to clarify I'm not in networking or IT at all. I'm a repair tech/ladder programmer
Mostly work with old ass Allen Bradley stuff
And I am an IT/PLC/surveillance/security/network/server/administrator kitchen sink
Not all that dense, but large.
What's the yellow cable going to / coming from?
the big yellow green one?
that's the ground going down to the ground bus
How much should I expect to make as a 1st year instrument technician apprentice here in the US?
I built this system for my house water system. The vfd drives a submersible well pump which pumps into a holding tank with some float switches. Then a transfer pump in pic rel pumps the water to my main tanks that are by my huse a few hundred feet away. Ive made it so it is fully automated and keeps my tanks full and adds water as necessary. I know its not a plc cabinet but whatever.. its a homebrew system. Im adding another drive to replace yhe transfer pump contactor but havent yet because its a chinkshit drive from amazon and the terminations leave exposed wires so i need to fire up freecad and make an adapter and 3d print it but havent gotten around to doing it
Missing some bonding bushings on those connectors.
Otherwise good job.
Thanks. Im not bothering with bond bushings. Its just a shed. Everything is grounded pretty good
>Im adding another drive to replace yhe transfer pump contactor
why
drives are expensive and a well is not a precise control loop
contractors are fine due
not him but drives are cool
plus in my case it's the companies money not mine so we put drives on everything
It was cheap on amazon. The amazon drive is not for the well. Its for the transfer pump. To eliminate the hard, sudd3n starting. So the motor ramps up and ramps down.
>contractors are fine due
What?
meant contactors
>To eliminate the hard, sudd3n starting. So the motor ramps up and ramps down.
that is only of concern if the motor has a high inertial load.
It does have a high inertial load Black person the drive is gonna help it out
listen, nothing that doesnt trip the breaker on direct start is high inertia
Listen bro, that pump is pushing on a lot of water, several hundred linear feet going uphill to my tanks. Its heavy and the startup is high current. Im installing the drive to hopefully extend the life of the pump mptor because that pump motor was $400. I already have the drive. I intend to ramp it up on startup and ramp it down on stop to limit the inrush current. Ive already made the decision and i already posess the drive. Why are you giving me a hard time? Post your system that you made
>Anonymous
Shits frickin gay dude. Hated being instrument guy. Geek squad status.
Frick instrument and electrician gays. I frickin hate this place sooo much.
I'm about to be an instrument guy.
What am I in for? I'm stepping up from being an electrician right guys?
I honestly don't mind dicking around with making stuff work for hrs.
For a while I worked at a small company basically building a special kind of particle accelerator used in research.
Millions for each machine, but actually built with all the best materials available and put together with precision as good as it comes.
Switzerland though. If it says "Made in Switzerland", it's probably decent at least.
Switzerland is a pretty cool guy, he made some early AC brushless servo drives with just plain transistors in the mid 80s and they still work to this day
>25 year old VFD blows up for no reason (had already been repaired and recapped years prior) and burns down its braking resistor bank, literally because it was filled with wood scraps
>install new VFD shilled and discounted by salesperson
>it's a b***h to configure but it works
>later discover motor has low torque near max speed
>replace with trusted brand VFD
>same torque issue
>all this happens in the span of few months with various trial and error sessions
>customer: "Oh yeah, that was the spare motor that had been rewound"
>inductance values are all over the place compared to orignal motor
Always assume customer has fricked up something
Another
>servo drive dies
>order replacement with max priority shipment
>install
>customer restarts machine
>while looking over the cabinet smell hot, after a while drive starts smoking
>run over to controls to stop everything
>notice customer had programmed a cycle that would move this axis continously back and forth at max speed
>discovert they were behind schedule and need to fix some parts
>install external resistor pack, problem solved
>$15k drive dies
>install new one
>Not braking correctly
>Brake resistor lug came completely unbolted
>bolt it back up
>Blow up brand new $15k drive
Turns out the brake chopper was also bad and took out the DC bus on power up.
dang how many amps did that thing pull?
wat type of motor?
It's fused for 200 amps @ 480vac 3 phase, and the first failed drive blew all 3 fuses. The motor is like 100 HP
where do you even begin to troubleshoot something like that? continuity check each phase to ground?
usually for those sort of blow outs you just look for the hole in the panel and place a new thing where the old thing turned to plasma
Don't you at least try to look for something that could have caused the fault, or is it (ideally) someone else's job? I mean if you replace a power supply or whatever only to find, after the new one blows, that the cables are chafed at the gland (making shit up here) then it's a waste of resources.
yes you're supposed to do that before even ordering the new drive, it might be still good, just unable to power up for more than 0.5ms because someone locked out the conveyer with vise grips
If someone locked out the conveyor with vice grips your drive is still going to power up, then it's going to give you an over current fault when you try to run it.
You can test the drive but all that's going to tell you is what you already know, yep, it's dead. That was obvious when none of the power lights or the screen came on and/or the fuses blew.
As they get older they die for various reasons without any real external cause. It's more common for one to just randomly die than it is for something to have actually gone wrong. Electrolytic capacitors go bad, diodes give up, etc.
Even the machine tech couldn't give me a test for the brake unit and it's not something I normally work with.
happens to the best of us, just dont lie about it.
my instructor prob thinks I'm a moron because I didn't read the lab booklet instructions about using Force command as opposed to toggling but it was pretty funny the confused look he had on his face when I explained how I was toggling through the I/O of the machine states in RSLogix
wat type of motor is it? wound rotor induction motor?
what's the point of these PLCs? can't you like you use a PC or a microcontroller?
You'd have to have an engineer design the micro-controllers for your very specific set-up/machines/robotics. That'd be very expensive and time consuming when talking about the scale most places operate at. You'd also have to retain them for any future updates and maintenance. Meanwhile, the PLCs you use are a standardized system that can be learned by technicians. The language PLCs use is very basic, ladder logic. Furthermore, PLCs are tried and tested in less than ideal environments typically found in manufacturing facilities.
Basically, it's overall cheaper and more effective to have lower level technicians maintain PLCs and their software than it is to hire higher level engineers to code/maintain micro-controllers.
Makes sense. But what's inside a PLC? probably some kind of a microcontroller with a bunch of I/O ports and tons of memory so it runs some kind of a real time OS that implements a layer of abstraction around the hardware and some special software that runs on top of it?
in its most bare form it is a gigantic main loop and you tell it what memory to load in which register and what instruction to perform inbetween. thats how you code it. The ladder anon spoke is just a visual abstraction for this
The os does the bus communication of sending the as io marked registers to the field i/o
>But what's inside a PLC?
what a plc is not defined by its hardware but its operation principle
what's with the two columns? crude instructions vs. optimized?
thats the same code written in two different languages.
left is ladder logic which is graphc and made to look like oldscool contactors, for example Button A connects +24V potential with X a contactors magnetic coil.
Right is the same code but text based Load A into accumulator 1 Store X it does the same.
honestly no idea, i dont know that specific syntax.
left colum is two load instructions before a bit operation, right colum is one load and a combined second load + bit operation.
It’s iec 61131 instruction list. Has direct equivalence to Ladder as per the spec and easier to generate and interpret by computers. In Siemens Step7 you can (could?) convert instantly between the two. These days it is sometimes used by old style guys but mostly replaced by ST
You could, but PLCs give you real-time processing (not literally but look it up), redundancy, shock/moisture/interference/shorting/heat protection, fast dedicated communication buses and the hardware/software architecture to reach those sweet <2ms cycle times. A PC could do that but making the changes to get it to do that means you’re basically building a PLC but more expensive. Beckhoff does it, they ship what are basically toughened PCs with some softPLC software, but unless you really need PC features on board (to eg run SQL parallel to the PLC program) they are too expensive for most use cases
There is controllino which is basically an arduino with relays in a din rail mountable plc like form factor, but their reliability is terrible in heavy environments.
It depends on what the project is. For most industrial automation jobs a PLC gives you hardened IO (you can short out the 24V outputs and it wont immediately kill the entire board), and a programming environment with commonality (IEC 61131-3) and memory safety.
Other than that they're no different to a mcu or pc with a GPIO card. Depending on it's feature set it will either be a mcu or pc, gone are the days of custom chips or fancy real time operating systems, they are either translating the ladder into a bitstream that an interpreter runs (disgustingly slowly in the case of most mcu platforms) or cross compiling into a linux elf.
>https://github.com/WAGO/cc100-firmware-sdk
Here's the source code for a small PLC using an application level SoC, it's basically a customised linux distro, the actual PLC part is the codesys runtime that sits on top, you can run that on basically anything, even windows.
For other things that aren't jellybean industrial tasks like robotics you are almost always better off using bespoke software for the task, for robotics in particular there are things like ROS (if you really hate yourself) and most of the fieldbuses that actually matter are open standards, so you can still use industrial components like servo drives or RS485 sensors without having to write much HAL code to talk to them.
Pic related could be programmed by a moron with a PLC because you only need to tell it where to go, but controlling each motor discreetly would make a lot more sense with a computer running a real time kernel because structured text is absolute dogshit.
> gone are the days of custom chips or fancy real time operating systems, they are either translating the ladder into a bitstream that an interpreter runs (disgustingly slowly in the case of most mcu platforms) or cross compiling into a linux elf.
How do you know this / when did it change? Are you turck anon?
I’m not doubting you I’m just wondering when eg Rockwell went from custom stuff to generic CPUs without telling us. They seem to be very secretive about their CPUs/architecture and my boss doesn’t like me enough to open up a plc to check what’s inside
Just lookup a particular PLC and someone somewhere has taken it apart. Big companies like Rockwell likely used some weird custom shit up until recently but only because it was stock on hand, certainly after covid fricking over everyone they have all redesigned to be as supplier neutral as possible.
Here's a modern controllogix board, granted not the most powerful PAC but a good representation of what most of the stuff people are dealing with day to day. The big unmarked chip in the middle is undoubtedly a ARM7 SoC, it might be binned such that it has similar environmental ratings to an automotive qualified chip (higher max t junction temperature, guaranteed part availability for 10+ years) but is otherwise no different to what's inside your home router, above it is some flash and below is a commodity SD card for OS and program, to the left is a FPGA, which is used as a multiplexer to break out the relatively small number of pins on the SoC into the dozens you would have on a single PLC module, do sampling/driving of ADC/DAC channels, and likely provide a means of converting a high speed serial bus to allow expanding the number of cards without burdening the CPU. For the more complicated PAC stuff it's all intel, you can buy real time qualified x86 CPUs, many companies make little embedded computes that use them. It just doesn't make sense to roll your own these days.
Thanks that’s very informative
>CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK
just like that, is like PC cable management except you need to follow blueprint
Substations are peak comfy. Never did any installs, just CAD work and as-built red lines but visited many substations
How'd you get into that line of work? Just from having only CAD experience?
The guy before me had an AS in drafting or something like that, got fired for being lazy. The position was called Engineering Aide. Said I could do more in 3 hours than he could do in 3 days. I didn't even have experience in CAD though, just a willingness to learn, absorbed a lot of knowledge from the SCADA engineers.
>The guy before me had an AS in drafting or something like that, got fired for being lazy. The position was called Engineering Aide. Said I could do more in 3 hours than he could do in 3 days. I didn't even have experience in CAD though, just a willingness to learn, absorbed a lot of knowledge from the SCADA engineers.
Yeah I'm thinking I'll get my drafting degree after I'm finished with my instrumentation degree
Dumb question but what makes it more expensive and better than some dated SLC500 hardware?
How deep is the wall?
3.5", you got nothing to worry about buddy
> “commissioning always takes too long it’s always the software guys”
> make new easier to commission software
> “prove it om this small project anon”
> come to test project site
> shorts in the 24v circuit
> missing phases
> floor bolts on light barriers are seized
> subpanel 24v transformer pinout is wrong on drawings
> all safety relays are miswired
> 16a a type fast blow breaker but we have 2kw motors
Gee I wonder why all the projects take so long
How'd you figure out the drawings were wrong?
24V stuff didn’t get any power sk we measured the pins on the connector and the +24V was on 3-1 instead of 1-2. Then downloaded the manual of the transformer and saw that the 4-pin connector numbering was clockwise instead of row-wise and that the pins were assigned differently according to the manufacturer
I'm a controls engineer whos end user is fedex, ups, amazon, etc, so yes that shit is my bread and butter basically
> fire alarm input to system drops, goes into estop
> faint red right flashes in corner of factory but it’s mostly taped off
> has a siren under it that can’t be heard when the other machines run
> ask them what’s happening
> “yes anon fire alarm is broken it goes off all the time”
> “please fix it so that it won’t switch the machine off”
> safety signature matches, signed off and sealed and stuff
> no can do.jpg
> “just put some wires in the input card I’ve seen guys do it before”
> suddenly the machine starts again by itself
> someone rewired both reset and start button to auto reset safety
> get to enjoy the rest of the day off while they bring it back into original state
can't say I've ever heard of a fire alarm shutting off a factory
I know for sure that ours don't
our fire alarms don't even have evacuation authority
extremely common if theres belts between buildings, stops it from carrying a fire
Like this anon says, but also inside a single building, they don’t want us to transport burning products in order to contain the fire.
everything eplosion protected, solvents, gasses, fuel, usually has a gateway to the firealert and shuts down. closes all valves and shuts off the ventilation fans closes shutters.
in my old plant the worst was to start up everything after the firefighters gave the building a all-clear all the ventilation was off and every room smelled like solvents, and it took almost an hour everything was ventilated with fresh air again.
standard spec for my end users:
>someone rewired both reset and start button to auto reset safety
just so you know, we do everything in our might to make that impossible nowadays.
why do techs confuse troubleshooting and fixing with circumventing crucial control loops
Yup, it was an older installation. We have this thing now where you need to press at least 200ms and maximum 2s or it won’t fire.
But I’ve seen PECs rewired to reset so that it auto presses when a product or person comes by at some southern American plant
doing industrial hvac controls
Gorgeous
In the theme of old shit. Had the pleasure to work on good old Automax today.
Those really went ahead of their time.
Frick G120 Frick s 1200 Frick siemens
Anyone here wanna point a 26 year old loser in the right direction to starting work as an electrician? Spill the beans
Electrician school
Can i use a contactor to control a 3 phase motor with a single phase switch? The relay is rated for 220vac. So if i wire L1 /T1 through A1/A2 as well, turning L1 off and on should also turn L2 and L3 off and on.
the switch goes to a1 and a2 to neutral, and all contacts on the contactor switch forced simultaneous (the main difference to a relay)
for a simple on off switch, usually a motor starter (eaton pkzm series) is the better option, equal cost, come with a case and have crude overload protection
You mean you connect L1 to switch input, and A1, and A2 to neutral right? If the switching current is 220VAC that would work, it’s unconventional though. Normally you’d keep L1-L3 live all the time, branch L1 to some sort of switch and use that as input for A1.
Nice trips but I still prefer AB 100-C16 because they click clack so hard you can hear them with the cabinet closed
No, I meant what you said, branch l1 to a timer and thermostat and then use it as the input to a1.
Sorry I meant to say heater, not motor.
>branch l1
you need to clarify what you mean
l1 as the phase or l1 as on the terminal of the contactor? sure, most are made to accept two wires.
Yes that is fine as long as the switching is also 220vac rated.
I fricking hate siemens