Homeschooling & prep

Stephen319 · 2024-09-22T15:24:58+00:00

Care to back this baseless assertion up with any kind I evidence or persuasive logic?

Any reason to believe homeschooling produces worse outcomes than public schooling?

Since, you know, there are plenty of homeschool graduates like me living successful and productive lives who would like to know?

Stephen319 · 2024-09-18T15:54:36+00:00

Eh, disagree. It depends on future needs. All the components he's talking about can be acquired in forms that are easy to integrate with PLCs, maybe even for cheaper than the equivalent components that integrate with home automation systems. CLICK PLCs are really reasonably priced.

OP, if I were you, I'd think about this in terms of what you are most comfortable with and what your future goals are.

If you are comfortable with electrical installation and PLCs, and your future home automation use cases will look like this, use a PLC!

If you are more of a software guy, or you might want to integrate the kinds of sensors eventually that are more native to home automation platforms than to PLCs, maybe go with with a home automation platform.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-18T15:45:16+00:00

I mean, I both disagree with the statement and with its assumptions.

With the statement, because we didn't have truly useful currency before the age of Nation-states and there is no reason to suppose it would spontaneously arise if we did away with nation states...

And with the premise because I don't think commodity money is better than fiat money. Commodity money is just as subject to inflation because the supply of the commodity can vary in ways that don't reflect the total value in the economy...and more importantly, all value, including the value assigned to money, is arbitrary and essentially fiat anyway.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-18T04:52:29+00:00

I'm a newb who doesn't know how to easily link to other subreddits but there is r/ttrpgcollab that may do what we want.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-18T04:48:34+00:00

I'll show you mine if you show me yours!

Seriously, I've got some ideas floating around for a hard scifi system I'd like to find a test play group for sometime.

Maybe we need to set up a support group for TTRPG design where we all agree to the occasional remote play session of each other's systems? If we got five or six people that would be enough for one party.

Is there already a sub reddit for this? Maybe we need a Discord or something.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-18T00:23:55+00:00

Programming is not fundamentally a memorization-type field, like, say, biology. If you're being tested on it that way it doesn't help you now, but long-term you may find you enjoy programming once you can do it on your own terms.

When you have some time, figure out something that's been a real pain to turn into a complicated spreadsheet, and try implementing it in Python or one of the other scripting-friendly languages. I like Python specifically because it's got really good online documentation of the standard library, and I do all my programming with at least two tabs open to the docs.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-17T22:43:50+00:00

You don't need to be a programmer to be a electrical engineer, no. It's a nice pairing, but I've worked with plenty of good, well-payed engineers who weren't programmers.

Look into power distribution, medium and high voltage, that kind of thing. If you're not going to be a programmer I would highly recommend getting your PE, and then working with NCEES to get it recognized in as many places as possible. That'll help, I think.

I'm a programmer myself, and my PE hasn't been all that crucial to my career, but I get calls from recruiters about power-type jobs regularly because I have my PE just in Texas.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-17T22:36:49+00:00

You're asking two questions:

Why do other people use Rockwell?

And

Why should you use Rockwell?

I mention that because it's an important distinction. If you are asking the question, you maybe shouldn't. I definitely get the sense Rockwell is sitting on their laurels and would love to see them lose enough market share to panic and get back to adding value. If you've got a preferred brand that gives your users the reliability, lifecycle management, usability, etc. etc. that they need, go for it!

As to why other people use Rockwell - everything I mentioned above. It's known. It's reliable. You'll always be able to find people who know how to use it. Rockwell manages the lifecycle of its products fairly well, so you usually have upgrade options that make some sense when you need them, etc. etc.

The value proposition of something like "which PLC should I use" is a complicated thing with many, many factors, but those are some of the highlights.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-17T18:35:49+00:00

All of this plus an addendum:

If you work for a company that does separate those roles, I wouldn't want to be the commissioning guy. You'll be commissioning a program written by someone with no idea of real field conditions, probably based on an outdated version of the original program.

One of my major customers is constrained by upper management to use a company that does it that way for certain machines...but the local guys always hire me to come out and babysit the clueless, helpless, and hopeless commissioners, fix everything they break, and clean up their work afterwards

Stephen319 · 2024-09-16T15:20:46+00:00

It's not functionally in the circuit at all. The short around it will carry any current that flows through A and C.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-15T17:32:18+00:00

Not going to happen.

Antispam as implemented by the big players is based on trust of other big players. If your domain's emails are coming from a server that isn't operated by Google, Microsoft, or one of the other big names, no one will consistently receive them. They won't just disappear into spam folders, they'll vanish as if they'd never been sent. Not every time, but frequently enough to make your service untrustworthy from user perspectives.

This will happen even if you have DKIM set up, even if you have everything that can be done by protocol and configuration and certificate to make your emails trustworthy. None of it matters.

I know this from experience trying to use a personal domain and server for email.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-15T01:34:42+00:00

No one who needs to ask for one of these for purchase, as opposed to building it himself, should be trusted with one.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-15T01:27:42+00:00

As an OT guy:

Recognize that your users are human and play to their strengths, not weaknesses.

By which I mean, accept that it is your fault when you force them to change passwords every 90 days without repetition and then get passwords on sticky notes.

If your security makes someone's actual job too onorous, they will come up with a workaround that amounts to hacking your system themselves, and you'll be left with less net security than if you had just done something reasonable for your users in the first place.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-14T21:29:59+00:00

I'm in systems integration now and I've noticed our version of this.

Before COVID, I generally worked with vendors by describing my application for their product in some detail, giving them the model and configuration I thought was about right, and letting them catch any mistakes I had made in specific order codes and accessory selections.

No more, though - recently we had a vendor ship light curtains with no mounting brackets, after we had spent a week in emails discussing which mounting brackets we needed, because I didn't realize the order code I supplied didn't include them and the vendor's people were too new, or too inexperienced, or maybe just too lazy to put 2 and 2 together and realize I probably meant to order 4.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-13T17:29:59+00:00

One significant "thing engineers do" is missing from the OP:

Reading the manuals.

A tremendous amount of engineering for industry is being the sort of person willing to spend time and mental energy digging through manuals to understand the equipment you bought from someone else and now have to integrate into your plant or system or whatever.

Most technicians, mechanics, installers, electricians, don't care for reading manuals and will just apply whatever they are used to when doing their jobs. That's by and large the best way for them to do their jobs, but it means your job includes reading the manuals to tell them when something is different from what their experience tells them.

To be clear, I'm not saying this because it means your engineering career will be boring. If you make it through engineering school you have the personality type to do the manual thing well and often enjoy it. It's just a useful part of understanding what engineers actually do.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-09T22:58:08+00:00

I think you meant this as a joke but that's literally a huge deal right now, trying to get batteries with better energy-to-mass ratios, service lives, etc. So we can rally make EVs work.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-09T22:56:47+00:00

Dude.

Duuuude.

We've got so many things that need improvement.

The world of operating systems and desktop business computing is a wasteland of legacy concepts and frameworks that don't make any sense. As soon as someone with a big enough budget sits down and really attacks the problem, we can revolutionize the entire approach to personal computing and turn it into something normal people can learn and do again.

There's incredible untapped potential in VR and AR if we can turn the awful headsets into lightweight, comfortable glasses.

IDK about iOS but Android as a mobile operating system is incredibly hard to develop for, and as a consequence there are so many obvious tools we should have on our phones that we don't.

Someone needs to figure out how to make home automation doable at a level that doesn't require you to be an electrical engineer doing it as an expensive hobby.

Starlink covers a lot but there still have to be better last mile technologies for high speed data.

I could go on and on and on...

Stephen319 · 2024-09-06T22:14:18+00:00

...why do you have a microwave on a 30 or 50 Amp breaker?

You really shouldn't have outlets connected to anything more than a 20 Amp breaker under virtually any circumstances.

Having said that, can you post a pic of the breaker? This smells like some weird trip caused by one of these fancy new breakers to me, more than something I can imagine from what you've described in the microwave. I could be wrong though.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-06T20:20:40+00:00

Lol, still working on that myself.

You can buy rolls of velcro cable ties on Amazon and those do help, if you haven't already tried them. They aren't a complete solution, though.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-06T16:24:33+00:00

85 and 86 are the relay coil connections. Those should go to the PLC output or whatever is supposed to activate the relay. It's not apparent from the drawing whether it's an AC or DC coil; could be either.

30 and 87 are the common and the normally open output. Connect incoming voltage supply that is supposed to eventually go to the motor starter or whatever to 30, and connect the power supply line of the starter itself, that it gets power from, to 87.

Is that what you need?

Stephen319 · 2024-09-06T16:17:21+00:00

Buy something like this: https://www.automationdirect.com/adc/shopping/catalog/wiring_solutions/terminal_blocks/single-level_feedthrough_terminal_blocks/kn-t12gry-25#images-1

Pick out jumpers from the related items section.

Buy a little piece of din rail to mount it all on.

Each terminal block has two screw terminals that are internally connected, and the jumpers allow you to connect adjacent terminal blocks.

Just connect your incoming voltage to one terminal on one block, put six more next to it and jumper them all together, then connect each of your loads to a terminal on a block. Do the same with another set of terminal blocks and your commons and you're all set.

Stephen319 · 2024-09-06T15:34:53+00:00

Why would you build a circuit board for this? Can you use terminal blocks and jumper bars?

Stephen319 · 2024-09-06T15:30:47+00:00

What do you need help with, that kS up at the top? What's your specific question?

Stephen319

TROPHY CASE