I orginally posted this over at
technokats forum, but I thought it might be a nice addition to this thread, since I took the time to type it all up....
In my day job, I am a Controls Engineer. I swear, it's the best electrical, robot, software, vision, job on the planet. I really enjoy my job. I work for a machine builder during the day. QSI Automation, Inc.
http://www.qsiautomation.com QSI builds assembly machines for just about any market. Automotive, medical, packaging, you name it. My job is to "animate" what a Mechanical Engineer designs. I run several projects at once, generally what we call "responsibility". At QSI I normally have about 1.5 million in responsibility. So if one project cost 1 million, then a second one is 1/2 million, I would only have two projects. If fifteen jobs cost $100,000, then I would run fifteen projects at once. Of course this is just baseline. It never works out this way. QSI has two Control Engineers, and four Mechnical Engineers. We are a turn key business. We do everything on our machines, we don't farm out anything. Not even mold design. We have mold makers and mold engineers. Feed bowl people and a complete machine shop. Something like eight CNC mills, one machine center etc, etc..
I started out when I was 17 years old in high school, much like you guys are. I got a temporary job with John Daniel Electric. They are an industrial commercial electrical contractor. Union brothers. I worked with them for almost two years as an apprentice and learned about 120, 220, 480 VAC 3-phase, the NEC (national electrical code), NFPA 79, as well as my first exposure to PLCs (programmable logic controllers). When I was first exposed to PLCs through John Daniels, I knew I wanted to learn more about them. I actually wired up some control panels at the time for a company called Shuttleworth, Inc. They make custom conveyors. Shuttleworth hired John Daniel to wire control panels which contained PLC's in them. Shuttleworth saw my wiring job, (neat and tidy) and asked John Daniel if they could offer me a job full time to wire and build control panels. John Daniels agreed, and I accepted a position with Shuttleworth at age 19. Shuttleworth had two Controls Engineers on staff and I knew that this is what I wanted to do. Shuttleworth had a tuition reimbursement benefit which paid for my college. I worked during the day, and went to school at night at IPFW and ITT Tech. Once I finished my schooling with my Bachelors degree, which I got in 3 years....I about killed myself doing it, but glad I did...I was offered a Controls Engineering position at Shuttleworth. Later on I moved onward to QSI still as a Controls Engineer.
So what do I do? A customer comes to QSI with a part. Lets say it's a key with rubber molding around the part you always grab to start your car. Our customer says, we need to bulk feed the steel band material into a die and punch out a key, then orient them into a feed system where we need to pick them up eight at a time and load them into a mold machine where they will get over molded with the rubber grip. Remove the molded part, break the runner, then vision inspect the molding, metal key way for any defects. We want this machine to run fully automatic with no operators. It must cycle every six seconds. This is what we call a "turn key" system. Push start, and out comes keys ready to be made into keys with a special grinder for your FORDs, CHEVY etc...
So we propose a concept of the machine and a fixed price to the customer and promise a 16 week delivery. The customer accepts our automation concept and the mechanical engineer begins designing the machine, tooling, etc. Once all the actuators are sized that the mechanical engineer needs, then I begin to look at what I need for an electrical panel to make this machine run. I design electrical prints to what is called a JIC standard. Normally in AutoCad 2D. I use AutoCad Electrical 2004 right now that does my electrical drawings. (You'll have to create an account to download) but here is a complete industrial automation system drawing prints I designed you can look at in AutoCad 2D.
http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?download=186
During the electrical design phase, I spec in, or I abide by my end users company spec. They might spec they want to use a certain name brand PLC, or photo-eye sensor. Or maybe even a certain type of a valve. As a Control Engineer at QSI, I am also responsible for designing the air system to control all the air valves. After the electrical design is done, AutoCad Electrical has a BOM (Bills of Material) system built into it, if I draw it, there is a part number assigned to it. I run a BOM report and give that to a purchasing lady. She orders all the parts I need to build my electrical panel for my machines.
Here are some pictures of electrical panels:
http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?au...y&cmd=sc&cat=1
Now that parts are on order, I begin to write software for the machine. Most machines are written in PLC ladder logic. It looks nothing like C++. It's graphical based. I had no C++ experience when I started mentoring robotics, but just like anything else I've programmed, if you can think logically, you can program in ANY language, you just have to overcome the syntax or how to access memory and registers in the processing environment you are placed in. I brag that I probably know about 30-40 different programming languages. Each robot I have programmed has it's own language. I called it mnemonics. Fanuc robots, ABB robots, Motoman robot, IAI robots, different single axis servos have languages, vision systems have a language etc....PLCs however are mostly the same. Ladder logic is ladder logic across the board no matter if you are programming an Allen Bradley, Siemens, GE, Omron, Automation Direct, Koyo PLC.. etc...I've programmed them all.
Here is a sample Allen Bradley PLC program in PDF format you can look at:
http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?download=17
Now that all programs are started, PLC, HMI (human machine interface), robot programs, vision programs. I wait until our assembly techs build the machine, build the panel, and turn power on for the first time. By the way, an HMI is a touch screen that you can make really kewl things on like push buttons, alarms, trending graphs, etc..it's sort of like this National Instruments stuff, but doesn't normally require a PC.
After assembly has powered on the machine for the first time, I bring my laptop down and camp out by the machine for normally a week to two weeks depending on the size of the machine. I debug my program and make the machine run. During this phase, we acknowledge any mechanical issues and normally redesign things that don't work. Like fixtures, nests that hold parts etc....grippers that don't quite grab the part correctly.
After the mechanical, electrical, and software bugs are all out and about 25 Mountain Dews later and some sleepless nights during debug, we call the customer and say we are ready to show them the machine. The customer comes in and normally finds something he/she doesn't like. They beat us all up, make us change this and that. Sometimes we make them pay for the changes, sometimes we eat it. Depending on who's fault it is. This is the part of my job I hate. Political crap. Also cycle time on a machine is very important. Up front in the quote we state our machine can make eight keys every six seconds. The customer comes with a stop watch. If he times the machine at 6.5 seconds, we are in trouble...more software changes more mechanical changes to figure out where our bottle neck is. Then finally we are running at 5.9 seconds and customer signs off on the machine.
Now the assembly department takes apart the whole machine, crates it and ships it to the customer facility. I arrive normally a week later, onsite. And go through the whole customer run off again. Normally for a longer time. Onsite generally in the machine contract we run the machine off for 8 hours with no less than 95% scrap rate and 98% machine uptime. After we pass this test the customer signs off with a final, and I come back to the shop and start all over again.
The next project might be making diapers, or making a air bag module for a Toyota...who knows, that's what makes it exciting.
Mind you I could have 1 to 15 machine in process all doing different things. I work with a Project Engineer who keeps all the facts straight on each of my projects and communicates with the customer. I seldom have to talk to the customer except during the first kick off meeting, in our plant run off, then finally at their place.
I travel every where. Travel is not bad. Every 6-8 weeks, I am on the road for a week at a time normally. I've been to Europe, Japan, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, etc.
What's kewl about a Controls Engineer is I get to play with lots of robots and vision systems. I consider myself an expert PLC programmer, robotics engineer and vision engineer. My favorite thing to do is integrate a vision camera on a robot so the camera sees for the robot and the robot pick up the part. I also like multi tool robots. Projects I've done that require the EOAT (end of arm tooling) to be changed on the fly, like change it from a drill to a saw. Everything, and everyday is different.
Here is a vision guided robot article I wrote:
http://www.mrplc.com/kb/index.php?pa..._v2&id=72&c=20
So in my past time I started a website called MrPLC.
http://www.mrplc.com. I started this website in 1999. It's a forum based automation website for people like me. It's just like Chief Delphi. I have over 18,000 members that participate and people have uploaded over 500 documents and manuals for just about anything automation related. Some of the documents and things I have developed:
Before AutoCad Electrical, I made my own auto cad menu to insert electrical symbols I released it for free:
http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?download=146
I made one for the mechanical engineers too "bolts" symbols
http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?download=166
Now the mechanical guys draw our machines in total 3D. Using Solid Edge. So they don't need the bolts menu anymore.
I also made several spreadsheets. One that can calculate panel amperages. I made it to work from low voltage to high voltage. Start with the 24 VDC control voltage, then 120 VAC, then finally the 480 VAC 3-phase. It calculates fusing etc for industrial cabinets.
http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?download=132
I also took air spreadsheet from a buddy of mind and made some more modification. You can use this to size air valves and cycle times.
http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?download=133
I've also written several articles about automation if your more interested
http://www.mrplc.com/kb/index.php?page=index_a&id=1
Here are some kewl automation videos you can watch:
http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?download=353
http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?download=348
http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?download=352
Watch QSI's company video, very neat stuff:
http://www.qsiautomation.com/cgi-bin...pg&action=link
Hopefully that wasn't too boring and you saw something here that might inspire you to look into the automation field. I've only scratched the surface of the amount of fun I have.
Good luck to you all.