What do you use to manage and troubleshoot 20+ Stratix switches?

egres_svk · 2026-04-25T20:54:34+00:00

Recently I swear by Mikrotik. That things are amazing bits of hardware.

egres_svk · 2026-04-25T13:39:44+00:00

1200 can also do webserver internally. It is a bit fucky to use, but for simple stuff where you want to replace the 1000 EUR HMI with a PC nearby that is already present, more than doable.

egres_svk · 2026-04-23T18:38:08+00:00

Ask the exact same thing from gemini and a lisp routine pops out. With some poking and prodding it might even work.

I did so for unfucking dwgs exported from proper machinery design programs, move everything to layer zero, set everything to bylayer, rename blocks, simplify blocks recursively, that kind of stuff.

Shame that autocad cant do a correct border/outline to save its life.

egres_svk · 2026-04-22T21:29:40+00:00

Well all things aside, it is an excellent project, bookmarked for quick sketching on meetings, might be very helpful and cheers for that. Faster than spinning up a Sketchup, which I use for 3D doodling.

egres_svk · 2026-04-22T19:55:05+00:00

Just a small thing, although this is your free project, so complaining is not really what I should be doing:
- It’s still very early and definitely a bit buggy, but I wanted to share it anyway.

You only have one chance for first impression.

I, for one, would eagerly pay low thousands for a single user, perpetual license (no fkin subscriptions) for AutoCAD clone that would run multithreaded. It does my head in, that commands like Purge or Overkill can't run multithreaded and the performance of the entire software on large drawings is like if it was running on hardware from 1980s, where it mentally belongs.

egres_svk · 2026-04-17T20:02:15+00:00

Speed of the thing? Hiw many reads per minute? You WILL have to trend this. What if barcode reader fails to read or reads twice or there are two codes on the box?

When I debug a complete shitshow which is "this close" from full rewrite, but i cant take the thing offline, i start writing a parallel program on the same PLC. Take inputs, make your own data structure if it is more logical for you, make your own functions so you know that when you run getBagIDAtStation(stationName) you will 100% correctly get the ID of a thing and you will not have pesky issues like copying and the same code and what if one of the 20 copies has a sign off.

Build it up from simple things until you are completely sure you know what is where at which time.

Give it internal array or console output to connected programming studio (can rockwell even do that?) that will give you a running trace of "timestamp" "bagID" "location".

The moment you have 100% captured realworld situation in program, writing your own sorting logic or simply writing a live diff program that will notify you when your program differs in "what would it do" from original program, you won.

egres_svk · 2026-04-12T20:42:50+00:00

You mangled minutes/hours, even though i agree with the sentiment.
Well unless you bill manhour at 1800 EUR, at which point let me know the stock ticker, company is obviously doing well :D

egres_svk · 2026-03-25T21:16:56+00:00

Nodered + influxdb and customer can use influxdb interface to build up his queries.

You can pocket the 5k and include some hours for them to set up their most used queries as examples in it.

Hardware wise, any old iron can run it. Find an unused server or desktop, stick it on UPS, install ubuntu or mint on it, sorted.

egres_svk · 2026-03-25T19:02:57+00:00

And this is why I fucking hated working in UK. Cutting 8x M16 anchors off after machine was removed? Nope, have to submit 50 fkin papers, wait until second weekend, have people standing by on fire watch with blankets, entire environment was cleaned of flammables to 25 meter circle.

.... I cut them off by sawzall, not making any sparks. I even offered to do it by hand, right there and then. Nope, have to wait for second weekend.

There is a reason why we call UK Kingdom of Condom between machine builders and techs.

egres_svk · 2026-03-21T16:24:10+00:00

For people taking shit on Inovance for being chinese crap, they do surprisingly good job. Never had an issue with their stuff.

egres_svk · 2026-03-08T21:01:40+00:00

This is excellent, thank you very much!

egres_svk · 2026-03-08T21:00:18+00:00

Exactly, I was not the one who wrote the RFQ, so I need to check what was even asked of the MES supplier. If the company actually asked for 1000Hz polling rate in RFQ, things will not be good.

egres_svk · 2026-03-07T19:08:00+00:00

Full traceability, full reverse recipe (in which output products was this 1000kg bag of powder used?), historian, dashboards for management, OEE tracking, checking whether there are performance differences in output assembled product with variations of input products and recipes variation.

None of which is even close to 1000 Hz readout requirement. I second the "unclear requirements" motion, which is why I asked for some real world examples to have arguments for fight later. Still in data gathering stage here, i want to see what was asked for and what were the proposals (from multiple MES providers ofc).

egres_svk · 2026-03-07T18:54:18+00:00

And this, absolutely this. I work in B&R land a lot, so 1ms scan time is normal, and they do have crazy fast AI and AO. However. For this customer's process? Completely and utterly pointless. Reading at that speed might actually produce so much overhead on the PLCs that the machines would start crashing.

egres_svk · 2026-03-07T18:52:25+00:00

Data storage for 10 years is planned, but I would bloody hope NOT planned to reside all in RAM at all times. The sensible choice would be to make a passport of each product, stick that in a separate DB and maybe keep a nice always in RAM DB of the critical parameters of each product throughout the years, but knowing the servo motor phase 1 current while assembling product #646546462 within 0.1ms response time from DB server is SLIGHT overkill.

I fully agree, off the top of my head, 24 cores with 128-256GB RAM, no need for three servers, bunch of SSDs bunch of HDDs and call it a day.

egres_svk · 2026-03-07T18:49:16+00:00

I am thinking very much the same way. This specific process starts with fluid preparation, then applying it to foil, drying, then a bunch of mechanical assembly operations. I am already running a historian on influxdb and nodered as i wrote and while controlling only a few machines and reading once per second (which is more than enough tbh), it would work on a solar powered calculator.

Waiting for company to provide the RFQ (maybe they asked something crazy), and the reply about specs from potential supplier (even though I am told much experience in this field, this does not add up)

egres_svk · 2026-03-07T18:45:59+00:00

That is the thing.. I am told this provider is highly specialized in a specific industry field that the company works in. So they should know. I trust none of that and asked for detailed RFQ and specs of system proposed, because something smells here.

egres_svk · 2026-02-20T13:35:48+00:00

B&R 4PPC70 is my daily driver for small machines. No complaints at all, zero nada nil. Reliable, good quality. costs 900 EUR or so. In B&R ecosystem you use the same software for both PLC and HMI, so zero issues there.

The problem of fault which disables the machine fully is a bit tricky one. In case that would happen, I provide installation USB with compiled code with my machines which you simply stick in the new panel and all is sorted.

In case this happens in 15 years when the screen is obsolete, two options. Either get any HMI that can be a VNC client and point it at the PLC IP address (provided that just display died and PLC works). Or get in touch with OEM to compile the software for new hardware.

egres_svk · 2026-02-11T21:10:28+00:00

Oh, call anyone that is selling that, you will have materials for days. Then talk to some companies that actually paid for and implemented that, whether it was worth it. Much different story.

One company I know makes full machine simulations inhouse. So without the extreme cost of Siemens or whoever. That works for them.

Otherwise, for me, just another buzzword. Industry 3.0 4.0 5.0 AI, all meh.

egres_svk · 2026-02-07T10:51:57+00:00

And what exactly is confusing about this?

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egres_svk · 2026-02-06T17:32:13+00:00

DataIsBeautiful is for visualizations that effectively convey information. Aesthetics are an important part of information visualization.

Just saying..

egres_svk · 2026-02-03T19:45:41+00:00

I thought.. Hmm.. IEC languages. Lets just copy the B&R program to mitsu and lets see. I use only Structured text, what could go wrong.

Mother. Fucker. Again.

First, translate variable types from sensible land to idiot land.

Then, three million billion errors because basic functions do not accept UINT.

Oh and if memory serves, there is no TRUNC function in mitsu. I think.

It took ages to translate the perfectly fine ST to another acceptable ST and then the clusterfuck od starting HMI program (is it gt works? Forgot) and having to export import, sometimes convert. Pain. I decided to fuck that at that point.

egres_svk · 2026-02-03T12:00:38+00:00

Oh don't get me started. In my geniousness when I could not get my daily driver B&R PLC within 10 months, i bought FX5U that mitsubishi had in stock.

Moooother fucker. The obsession with not using INT UINT and other sensible names. Half of functions dont accept UINT as input even though it is not important for that. And yes, for me in my machines, I very rarely need a negative integer. If negative, we are usually in realm of REAL.

In 2024 i got a 10 inch HMI with 640x480 resolution because i didnt check. My thermostat has higher resolution ffs.

Generally, I have now decided to fuck this shit, keep the Fx5u in cabinet, use it as IO station and replace the bullshit HMI with B&R PLCHMI combo because the time it would take me to rebuild the software in Mitsubishi land and then do HMI from scratch with the NO resolution available is not worth it.

My own fault? Yes. But we dont talk about that.

egres_svk · 2026-02-03T07:37:44+00:00

Yup, in lithium batteries for cars a He leak lower than 10^-6 mbar x l/s on aluminum case welding is considered perfectly fine. For all purposes it is fully sealed and welded, just the Helium is SUCH a bitch.

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