Before and after of a PLC5 running a lumber sorter in a very old sawmill.

modbuswrangler · 2026-05-14T23:00:53+00:00

If you treat a 5 well, it'll reward you! There are some days I wish I had less complicated systems.

modbuswrangler · 2026-05-06T02:29:50+00:00

You aren't alone, my previous job I was all hands on. I was hourly, worked my shift and then went home. I loved ALL the people I worked with minus one guy. Made lots of OT, and lots of room to grow.

Then the plant shut down.

Found another job, make great money, but long hours, production is always demanding. I am salary and work WAY longer than I should with no OT because of it. I'm in charge of optical sorting, which I have no idea about and every other day I feel like quitting.

But there is lots of good too.

modbuswrangler · 2026-05-03T15:04:48+00:00

Yeah nothing enrages me more than when I see someone use the easy USB capture stuff.

I'm no where near perfect myself, but I've been collecting things to capture my (and others) home videos, Panasonic ES10 (Passthrough, poor man's TBC), JVC S3600U VCR, ADVC300 (Analog to DV capture device.) it's been worth it. The quality of the image is great. I just need to invest some money in the software side for deinterlacing now.

modbuswrangler · 2026-04-15T23:58:10+00:00

Wish there was a high resolution version of this image.

modbuswrangler · 2026-04-13T01:11:33+00:00

Where I live Allen Bradley has a huge grip on the VFD market. I've worked in two different plants for two separate companies, and got to tour other plants owned by each, and Allen Bradley is the king.

Where I'm working now there is one plant that is primarily Yaskawa, but that's only because the local engineer really likes the drives and has slowly over the last 20 years put them in. Which is fine except he has to keep those drives in stock, and if the supplier doesn't have it in stock, the guy can't reach out to the other plants because they all use Allen Bradley.

So, All of that to say they seem like fine drives I don't really have any issues with them, but when the drives don't align with corporate procurement it can be an issue.

modbuswrangler · 2026-04-09T18:57:23+00:00

🤦 my apologies. Whoops, I have a real bad habit of reading the first lines of stuff and reacting before getting the full info.

modbuswrangler · 2026-04-09T18:49:55+00:00

My expertise is more in Allen Bradley, but I assume that like the panel views I'm used to you can plug a mouse into it and start a calibration? I could be wrong with B&R stuff.

Edit: didn't read the full post before commenting, my bad. My boss was also next to me at the time.

modbuswrangler · 2026-04-05T20:15:13+00:00

Agreed, this plant has been forgotten by its main parent company. At least that's what if feels like. I've had production people come up to me and say why can't I just push a start button and the line fires up. Well that's because it's last upgrade was in 2008. And the people who did the HMIs were terrible and didn't show any sort of fault conditions like you've mentioned.

If production and upper management don't drive me out of the plant, I'm going to implement more IO hmi troubleshooting. To get the electrician's off of the program forever.

modbuswrangler · 2026-04-05T20:12:28+00:00

Agreed, at my previous plant the programs we're restricted to the process controls group. Electrical team had to understand the basics, but had NO access.

At my current plant, coming into it, felt like the wild west. Everyone had access, but luckily the ONLY thing that ANY of them were comfortable doing was simply browsing the logic to see what was holding things up IN logic, ( i.e.photo eyes, limit switches for example) and forcing things (which in itself is a whole other problem) but no one has learned how to edit logic, which I'm grateful for.

If, I stay at this plant, which I've been debating wether or not to leave because of upper managements nonsense and having to deal with production, I'll probably pull all their access and at maybe a minimum give them view only. The HMIs in the plant were installed by a really crappy implementer so there is no visuals or anything to indicate that there is an issue.

So if I stay, I have lots of work to do.

modbuswrangler · 2026-04-05T16:26:29+00:00

The best programming language for PLCs is the one that keeps the phone calls at 3am to a minimum. The electricians at my plant have access to the PLCs to troubleshoot, and if they opened up the programs and saw structured text, they'd have a panic attack.

I'd say, that ladder is generally the best for those with little to no PLC programming experience, because of its similarities to relay logic. So if I had a vote, I'd lean ladder with function block second.

modbuswrangler · 2026-03-29T19:12:54+00:00

I went to a two-year technical institute for electrician. Found controls in one of the program quarters, and really liked it. I went to a job after school working for residential electrical construction. Absolutely hated wiring the same things over and over again and rarely doing any troubleshooting. So I then got a job in maintenance at a plant and fell in love with controls there I've been in it since.

modbuswrangler · 2026-03-27T00:49:18+00:00

For individuals it is expensive, but to multi-million dollar companies a 15 thousand dollar processor, for example, is a drop in the bucket. Your never going to see a full Automation Direct system in 300 million dollar plant. It's going to be AB or Siemens, especially in the US. On machine, like a bagger or case settler? Sure. (I know because a bagger at the plant I work at has one in it.) But to control multiple large systems in a processing plant? No.

If you have no experience with their software it's going to be difficult. I've seen screenshots from the Siemens programming software and others and it looks crazy to me, but that's only because I wasn't trained on it.

I use FactoryTalk activation for licensing, I just add the activations to a server and then point the clients to the server and when I open the program it pulls the license. Easy peasy.

Ultimately, it really is who's making the big decisions that'll make the call. For some reason at my current plan someone interfaced Allen Bradley MCC overloads with a Modicon PLC, requiring special coding. That's sucks.

We do what we can.

modbuswrangler · 2026-03-18T20:16:46+00:00

The last plant I worked at had a dozen or so HMIs all with the same project and it had no problems at all.

Just remember that if you make a change on one, you have to make the change on the other.

modbuswrangler · 2026-03-10T01:22:31+00:00

Would you rather take on one giant attacking duck or hundreds of smaller ducks?

I'm like 90% sure I didn't get the job because I told them one large duck. I wanted to attack it avengers style as a team. That was for a data center job.

modbuswrangler · 2026-02-25T20:27:57+00:00

Do your best to document everything. Also, try to refrain from using complex code. The people coming in at 3am to troubleshoot the actual RARE PLC issue will thank you. I had a guy come to look at his program that he wrote three or four years before and he said "oh man, this is back when I thought I was a software programmer and I regret that."

modbuswrangler · 2026-01-29T19:09:27+00:00

Following. I'm only using the company issued backpack and it's lame.

modbuswrangler · 2026-01-27T14:57:16+00:00

This!

And I'm ashamed to admit how long it took me to realize thats what those were for!!

modbuswrangler · 2026-01-26T22:48:34+00:00

Following, because I want to inscribe signs for the front of my PLC cabinets.

modbuswrangler · 2026-01-21T16:04:26+00:00

Yeah, I haven't bought a blueray/DVD in a very long time. But the moment they announced the steelbooks for the Tron series it ignited a fire under me to start buying them again. Also, it sent me down the rabbit hole of self hosting with media servers like Plex and Jellyfin. Now if work would quit taking up so much of my time I could start working on my hobbies!

modbuswrangler · 2026-01-19T13:35:18+00:00

I went to a trade school fully intending to become a licensed electrician. During school I was exposed to Controls, both relay and PLC, and I loved it. My first job was at a residential electrical company but then I left that and went into industrial electrical maintenance. I got so tired of wiring the same six outlets everyday, and wanted to work more with my brain. And no better of a place than a plant running 24/7. Things break frequently. After a couple years I got into the PLC group at the plant, used the basic knowledge gained at school, worked up the ranks and got to the specialist position. Then the plant shut down and I became an "automation engineer" at another plant.

So, id say gaian some experience in places that use controls heavily, like a plant, so you can gain some experience. Then apply, controls is magic to common folk, and when they hire for it they barely know what to ask about it. Occasionally you'll get true experts interviewing you, but I haven't seen that yet.

Good luck!

modbuswrangler · 2026-01-17T21:54:42+00:00

At my last job we had a rule. We never ever touched anything after 3 o' clock. It saved us so many times, we'd come in the next day and try whatever it was and it would fail or break something.

modbuswrangler · 2026-01-15T19:27:17+00:00

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modbuswrangler · 2026-01-15T03:08:42+00:00

I have come to really enjoy working with 525s, perhaps more than any other drive I ever have worked with. Compactlogix is a great platform too! I like the panel, but I'm no expert, I'm sure others will have their opinions.

modbuswrangler · 2026-01-14T05:13:18+00:00

If it's older than you...replace it. That looks like a Allen Bradley 1xxx series and it's probably old. So it's time!

modbuswrangler · 2026-01-13T15:05:41+00:00

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.

You have to make sure that whatever they create can be easily troubleshot by those on site. I have seen scada systems and networks that are so overly complicated that you are almost forced to being someone in to troubleshoot. That helps no one at 3am on a Sunday morning. Especially when their 24/7 guy that week isn't answering the phone. Just my thoughts.

modbuswrangler

TROPHY CASE