Update on Projects – “Why haven’t you written more posts?”

BusyToo

I have been asked by a lot of readers, friends and associates lately about where I’m at on the various projects I’m involved in. There has also been an undercurrent of “why haven’t you posted lately?”, so I figured I’d write a general synopsis of what I’ve been doing.

Of course one thing I’ve been doing is teaching a lot of classes for Automation Training. Since May I have been in Atlanta, Portland OR (twice), Baltimore (twice), Orlando, Cambridge, Canada, Haiti, Cincinnati and South Carolina. Here is a picture from Haiti:
Haiti13

This is my new friend Alcidas and I visiting Ft. Jacques outside Port au Prince. The cannons were too heavy for carry-on luggage so I left them there.

Alcidas is the maintenance supervisor at a power plant in PAP, he was kind enough to take me on a tour around Haiti after our class on Wonderware and ControlLogix. Without him I’m afraid I would have had to just stay at the hotel when not at the plant. Thanks Alcidas!

Its been almost a month since my last post, on one-shots. I try and put a technical post up at least once every couple of months and I feel a bit guilty for not at least putting SOMETHING on here this month, but only a little.

As for the post before that, requesting samples and help on other PLC platforms; I have received some help from a few people I’d like to mention: Siva K. from Drives and Systems has been super helpful on both Modicon/Schneider and Codesys. I recommend his blog site also for lots of good info on IEC61131-3 programming, he works for Schneider and has been a great resource. Rucha from the Chennai area in India has helped with some good addressing stuff, while Joseph has provided some nice software screen shots.

Another major kick start I have received on this PLC project is from my friend Juan down at ABD in Miami. He has asked me to teach a class for his technicians on the equipment in their plant, which I have gotten to know fairly intimately over the last couple of years. The problem is how to cover all of their PLC platforms (Allen-Bradley ControlLogix and SLC, Siemens S7, Koyo and RSView32) in a week, when I normally take 4 days to teach a single platform? The answer I came up with was to write a generic class that covers all brands. I am just about done, which is a good thing since I leave for Florida tomorrow!

This will also serve as the beginning for the advanced book I have proposed. I will also be making it available for sale on my business website as a generic beginner class after I’ve polished it a bit.

I am also working on some educational software offerings written on a C# platform. So if you are a C# person, I may have some work for you.

So in other words, as they say ’round these parts I’ve been “busy as a one-legged man in an a$$-kickin’ contest”, even though we don’t really have those kind of contests in my area. Even if we did, we probably wouldn’t allow one-legged competitors.

So if you have any material on other PLC platforms, especially Mitsubishi and GE, let me know. I can still use the help!

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About

Electrical Engineer and business owner from the Nashville, Tennessee area. I also play music, Chess and Go.

1 Comment on “Update on Projects – “Why haven’t you written more posts?”

  1. Frank, I have no help to offer but wanted to say I enjoyed reading your post and to try to take a day off once in a while. Love, Mom