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edexlab

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I've previously asked this in the Course feedback section of the forum, but due to a lack of response I thought I'd appeal to the masses!

I've been looking at various "hands on courses " for Industrial ie controls , as upto now I've not had much contact with this type of work, I've done plenty of installation jobs in Industrial settings ie containment , wiring into panels, power distribution and so on, but
any mods or problems were usually sorted by the most experienced guys and we just concentrated on the install

But I feel I need to learn more on the controls side, to be able to confidently fault find , modify etc as there seems to be a real shortage of skilled people in maintenance/ commissioning these days and also to increase my scope of work ,
I had a short run with a company covering holiday leave for a guy which I took on reluctantly as I know this is not my usual work, but really to just help out and to get some experience, and I felt out of my depth although I did manage to find and fix a few faults which did occur


I've seen various courses which are run over 10 days or so with theory and practical combined but no colleges seem to offer this type of course over a longer period ie C&G and I'm interested to hear from anyone who has done something similar and any recommendations.
Any sensible feedback or suggestions would be very much appreciated!
 
I can’t see how anyone can run a course to teach control systems in such a short time.

It’s a pity you couldn’t stick at your short term placement. It’s a very good way to learn.

Won’t your companies commissioning team help you? You need to approach the company management. Again it’s a good way to learn that has the advantage in that you’ve installed the gear and therefore should know where everything is. That’s a crippler if during a breakdown you’re running around looking for PX321.

Being on a plant permanently is a great advantage. You’ll mainly do maintenance and small installations but you are “it” when things go haywire. Any sensible company won’t throw you in at the deep end, you have to learn your way around first.

To properly fault find or carry out modifications you need to know how things work in the first place. If that means learning the process, then so be it. Spend time with the process guys and ask them questions.

Believe me, it’s not just playing around with wires and changing the odd PX. The plant electrician gets roped in to everything because every breakdown is electrical to start with.

Sorry I can’t be more helpful and I wish you all the best because I think it’s one of the best things you could get yourself in to.
It’s also the most frustrating, but I’ll not spoil it for you………….. Yet.
 
I second that ... When plant stops its always Electrical even when its not... Ive had to get my head around loads of none electrical theory, when you tell your customer a failure in say a pneumatics piston has brought the machine to a standstill then we all know whats coming next ....'can you repair it then?'...Why not!.... (sometimes I do depending if its is actually a simple task but each to their own trade saves many a mistake).

I'd look up Engineering courses that have control systems and theory as part of the course.. it will give an overview of the working components and how they interact but nothing can replace several years working in the field to learn it as every control panel is usually unique to the set-up its controlling..... its like been taught how to drive a mini then been given the keys to a space shuttle if you dont gain many years direct experience.
 
I'm self employed do my own jobs and sub to several companies installing.

The only courses I've found, are really multiskilling short courses aimed at giving an introduction course in 2 parts to electrical maintenance to mechanically biased engineers, so they cover basics like isolation and ohms law progressing onto circuits, components, motors and ladder logic, mainly hands on building circuits from drawings and also faultfinding on panels with real failed contactors, motors etc it is as I say an introduction and not a short course to become a maintenance spark

I cannot find any C&G courses I'm sure there used to be an electrical maintenance course?
I phoned the local colleges and no joy

So I've been reading every chance I get, much of the available info is from the US so terminology is slightly different, or from manufacturers publications etc but this is no substitute to real experience! !

Considering I had only a week onsite with the plant electrician
(he taught me quite a lot in a very short time about a decent sized plant and is a very experienced guy)
I know I coped well even though I'd been chucked in the deep end but was lucky with the faults I had!
but the whole experience did make me feel very underskilled and I was keen to return to get more experience.
 
Yes I was told the same ...every fault is electrical !

Had this all the time even when the whole plant shut down, for several minutes,

Got told go and check the switchroom its an overload that's tripped,
site has several switchrooms spread out

I stayed put trying to explain each area has its own switchroom supplied by its own 11 Kv transformer and one onsite substation, so it was either network power loss or Plc issue as this was the only common factor between the plants onsite, operators didn't believe it

A few minutes later phone rings, it was due to a problem with the Plc program which was fixed online by the company that installed it as any problems are immediately notified to a technician off site

One thing I did learn, from being pointed in the wrong direction
Is to use the operators knowledge but not to trust them 100% and remember to check everything, even if they say "Oh no it won't be that!, it hasn't worked for years"!
 
You'll find that the way of life... if I know the machine operator I usually get the true story as Ill cover their backs if need be but where I come to a new company or operator its rare to get the truth, had this on last breakdown reeler had stopped working, no wiring plans etc .... 2 hrs to check all sensors, contactors plc's I & O's as I figured them out... twice during that time I asked is their a disable option in the Operator control interface that he may have accidently switch over... first time he said no, second time he looked through all options and said no deffo' not ....

After realising everything worked and manual over-ride operated the reeler it came down to the PLC output not going high regardless so I said show me all the screens ... 3rd screen had reeler listed near bottom with a big x in the run box... quick touch changed it to a tick and a machine down for 24hrs suddenly worked!!!

Half the battle is understanding operating sequencers without plans and with a stupid operator...
 
One of my first major projects after joining a new company was sort out a product transportation system. It was my own fault I got lumbered with the job. “Never tell the MD the program is crap!” “You’d better get on with sorting it out then.”

The original program had been written for Modicon 284, just after I started the 284’s were scrapped and replaced with 984s. The company wouldn’t pay to have the programs transposed properly. The old programs just being dumped in to a new shiny home and they didn’t like their new home.
It was chaos. The transportation system would either loose things or just lockup. If it locked up the only way out of it was reload the program.

So I set to looking at the program. I soon gave up with the idea of titivating the old program, time to start afresh. Four months later “lets give it a try.” A total disaster, it didn’t help when the MD arrived just as the main lifts took out a section of a wall. that turned out to be a problem with scan times.

Eventually it was up and running and everyone was happy, especially me, more pay.

One of the things in the remit was everything had to have a manual override. This is where the problems started, the operators found out about it.

I was getting peed off with getting the blame when things went wrong. I couldn’t prove it was the operators. Until I put in the spy in the cab. Only I knew it was there, that shows how much interest the other technicians took. 1500 registers suddenly assigned to an unknown sub routine and no one noticed.

It did go wrong and with near fatal consequences. I was invited in to the office and they proceeded to lay in to me. I just sat there with a smug grin. “Tell me what time it happened.” They got it all, chapter and verse.
Tony in righteous indignation mode ain’t a pretty sight.

The problems stopped after that for some reason.
 
I know of a Sparky on night shift call-out was lets say supplementing his wagewith call out boosts .... one night machine went down and for whatever reason his phone wasn't working so they called the other off duty engineer in and what he found was a timer set to shut the plant down whenever he wanted strategically put into the controls... it turned out from breakdown patterns of his call out and his colleagues that he'd been faking several a month and ironically a power failure in his area had knocked his house phone off.... he knew what time it was going to go down but couldn't go without a phone call.... P45 and legal action for fraud ...that is all I know.not sure what happened to him.
 
I found the same at the foundry, a bit more subtle though. It took me a while to work out what was going on. His downfall was in his programming style. Four of us could alter programs. You could tell who had put a network together, we all had our own style. His was totally different to the rest of us.

Pity I found it after he left the company.

Basically if various independent machines on the production line did things in order, ABC everything was fine. Say a machine was a bit slow for some reason and the order changed to BCA then the whole line would lock up. As duty engineer your main concern was get the plant running and not be all that bothered about what had caused it.
I’d been caught out a few times. One night I’d got some free time so had a mooch around the program and started following the trail. It was good, a little bit added to about 40 networks that led around in circles. It even went though ModBus and PeerCop via two other PLC’s.
 
I did something different, I "sabotaged" a machine!.
We had built a welding robot cell and my boss suspected the final payment would be withheld for as long as they could get away with it so I put a timer in the PLC to stop the machine a couple of weeks after final payment due date. Sure enough, no payment followed by irate phone call "machine's stopped, get here and fix it", my boss told him nothing would happen 'til we got the final payment which appeared in the account a couple of hours later :D. Told him which page on the HMI and what number to enter to get his machine working.
 
I did something different, I "sabotaged" a machine!.
We had built a welding robot cell and my boss suspected the final payment would be withheld for as long as they could get away with it so I put a timer in the PLC to stop the machine a couple of weeks after final payment due date. Sure enough, no payment followed by irate phone call "machine's stopped, get here and fix it", my boss told him nothing would happen 'til we got the final payment which appeared in the account a couple of hours later :D. Told him which page on the HMI and what number to enter to get his machine working.

Done that myself with risky customers ...timed it 1month after due date and knew they were slow payers ... All hell breaks loose when it shuts down and he has a big order on, I said I had a big job on and can't afford gear because they hadn't payed yet so we have a dilemma .... I said cash or direct account payment and I will log into the PLC and remove the disable command... said what I was doing is illegal so I said not paying for goods is fraud you have had plenty of time to pay and 2 reminders of been overdue, ring the police if you wish but I promise you you'll loose more money with downtime than what you will having to pay me and getting it running .... 30mins later direct payment in my account and I sent the over-ride code over the internet... sweet ;)
 
... said what I was doing is illegal so I said not paying for goods is fraud you have had plenty of time to pay and 2 reminders of been overdue...

Can't see how he can say it's illegal, you probably have the usual T&C's goods remain your property until full and final payment so if you wish to shut down your​ machine there's not much he can do?.
 

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