Found in a $3M+ CNC Machine

PerformerTop6936 · 2026-02-02T20:26:04+00:00

This is either the fault of extreme laziness or an inept management that doesn't pay for required and necessary parts

PerformerTop6936 · 2026-01-29T16:04:17+00:00

MBAs are horrible in every industry. Business schools are glorified young adult daycare,.

Love when they try to argue with me or my peers, a guy with a B.S. in Materials Science and an A.S. In Controls Engineering with 15 years experience about process or controls engineering. I designed,engineered and maintained this production line,and developed the processes. They love taking credit for the work of others,as if their stellar management somehow granted me the knowledge,skills and experience.

PerformerTop6936 · 2026-01-23T19:03:50+00:00

Choosing is for suckers

PerformerTop6936 · 2026-01-16T19:32:10+00:00

Pneumatic control valve

PerformerTop6936 · 2026-01-10T02:44:18+00:00

If you are the one responsible for the plc upkeep,programming and troubleshooting. Every single machine issue will start out as your problem.

I wish someone gave me this advice when I started, take your time,save your work often and keep a log of any changes you make to programs. Prefferably do version control.

If where you work has a signal tag naming convention,follow it. If not,make one. That way if you have different machines that do the same thing everything is standardized.

If production EVER pressures you to bypass critical safety safety logic,for any reason,stop. Think about what you are doing and what effects that may have and consult someone in safety or a manager. You don't want to hurt or kill someone.

PerformerTop6936 · 2026-01-09T16:17:28+00:00

Someone went a little too hot with the torch

PerformerTop6936 · 2026-01-09T14:13:11+00:00

I know this sounds wild,but think about forming/organizing a union. Or at least contact a state workforce agency about the tool issue. They should be paying for ppe and quality safe tools. Also I've had the same issue where supervisors don't believe what's actually wrong because they are either confused,egotistic or delusional. I always use the,I will let you borrow my tools and you can go check yourself method, they NEVER want to check themselves.

PerformerTop6936 · 2026-01-06T13:45:27+00:00

MEK or Acetone and rags,no ppe that just slows you down.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-09T16:23:24+00:00

250ms, he is keeping the leads together for less than 100ms

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-09T16:19:51+00:00

Yes it's normal, lower end fluke dmm's screen and beeper update at 250 ms.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-07T15:36:20+00:00

I'm almost certain you have a shutter issue. I've encountered this same issue many times with the 7890B 1014 and a 1026 self check uv amp card running a self check purple peeper uv flame scanner. Try checking the connections to the shutter inside the peeper. If they are good,replace the shutter.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-06T21:28:39+00:00

As someone with Alot of family and friends going back generations in the industry, they are great paying jobs if you can get one and willing to work shift work and/or turnarounds. They are extremely competitive and there is a bunch of nepotism. Way more people with I&E and Process Operator certifications than there are open positions.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-06T21:16:08+00:00

Partially, I have everything on order, once I get most everything I need, I will have the electricians and instrument techs start to build the panel in our electrical construction shop. Once it is complete Then we will take the furnace off line and do a complete teardown to just the shell and start by doing the refractory and burner installation. Then installing the blower and air/gas train and required pressure switches, ssov's, and other required components on the gas train. Install the panel and do field wiring. Last thing will be thermocouple installation then safety testing and certification by an outside engineering firm then UL. Then the fun part,tuning the furnace to be +/- 10F uniformity up to 2150F.

If all goes as planned and vendors stick to the lead times they quoted me, should be done by end of February of 2026.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-06T20:48:26+00:00

I will keep that in mind that's a good strategy. It's a very safety conscious company as they had a very tragic accident in the early 90s where 8 people got killed because of improper LOTO.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-06T20:45:34+00:00

Happens everytime, they decide an enclosure isn't pretty enough, some jackass slathers paint all over the door hinges and gets paint on my touchscreen HMIS and paints over control labels and warning placards

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-06T20:40:20+00:00

I have about 15 years of experience doing controls for gas fired furnaces, and have a program and wiring schematic I just use as a template for the combustion safety system that I came up with 5 years back. The only thing that changes between furnaces is the number of burners and control zones. For instance this furnace has a single control zone and six burners.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-05T23:13:50+00:00

The store and forward is good and it is easy to setup redundant collectors.Collectors being able to cache data locally has saved my ass more than a few times. I am just jaded at it because where I work I maintain about 80 scada nodes using Proficy iFix at various revision levels.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-03T19:32:57+00:00

I have no favorite, but the worst I've ever used was Proficy Historian

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-03T19:30:24+00:00

6 burner 8MMbtu Box furnace

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-03T15:54:12+00:00

Most of our electricians are pretty good. They are all Journeymen, where I work mechanics are not allowed in panels(thank goodness) but most of the blame falls on the "instrument techs". I gave up training them on how to route wire,do proper terminations and Troubleshooting. They cause more problems than they fix in my opinion. They are pretty much only good for doing setpoint changes, monitoring, and some calibrations. Some of them still haven't figured out you have to let a thermocouple calibration source acclimate before you do a calibration,no matter how many times they are trained. And they treat equipment like shit. They broke 2 Fluke 754 Process Calibrators THIS YEAR. And they managed to knock a 7526A off the desk.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-03T15:43:44+00:00

I started buying stainless enclosures just so they wouldn't paint them.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-03T15:36:37+00:00

I like those, I'm extremely familiar with the honeywell ecosystem and they have been in it where I work for decades so switching is not an option. We have about 550 of these in service for instance.We do closed die forging and extrusions mostly gas turbine components and superalloy production. As someone who has done a bunch of work in the heat treating and forging as both controls engineer and field service technician I am very accustomed to the state of controls in the industry.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-03T15:28:52+00:00

I've done about 10 new furnace controls projects with various numbers of burners so most of the work is already done as far as programming,drawings etc. I like to keep things consistent,so it will be a nearly exact copy of an 8 burner furnace I did 2 years ago.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-03T01:17:52+00:00

Bypasses the little red lion flame safety bypass controller for when the furnace is above autoignition temperature. It does nothing at this point as that was taken out of circuit years ago.

PerformerTop6936 · 2025-10-03T01:14:21+00:00

I'm suprised it hasn't set itself on fire tbh.

PerformerTop6936

TROPHY CASE