The Art of Prototyping
It has been a couple of months since I posted here, some may have wondered if I am still keeping up this blog… Actually I have been actively posting on Linked In, YouTube and my Facebook group, but its a …
Author: Frank
Electrical Engineer and business owner from the Nashville, Tennessee area. I also play music, Chess and Go.
Content Creation
Wow, it’s been a while since I posted… That’s because I’ve been creating lots of content for the Automation Academy, and I am writing a new book on industrial maintenance and troubleshooting. Both require a lot of writing, pictures, and …
Is OEE Enough?
OEE, or Overall Equipment Effectiveness, is the percentage of manufacturing time that is productive. It is composed of three parts: Availability – The percentage of time the process is running during planned production time Performance – The percentage of production …
Random Thoughts Video
I recorded this video while driving from my home in Lebanon, Tennessee to visit a customer in Knoxville. It is the day before the one-year anniversary of the tornado, and I just kind of discussed the stuff that I have …
A Tale of Three Students
As I approach the one year anniversary of the tornado and the onset of Covid-19, I can’t help but think of how my training approach has changed. Automation Training classes have been few and much smaller, and of course they …
Proposals and Quoting
Our guest at Friday’s Mastering the Machine event at the Automation Academy was Doug Alward, Senior Applications Engineer (retired) at Wright Industries. Doug has a wealth of experience in the applications field and shared all kinds of insights on what …
Ladder Logic 309: Allen-Bradley DDE/OPC Link to Excel
It’s been a while since I’ve added to the Ladder Logic series, so this post serves several purposes. It serves as the 7th video in the ControlLogix Odyssey series, it will be posted on YouTube as an ad, and it …
Ladder Logic 309: Allen-Bradley DDE/OPC Link to Excel Read more »
Covid-19’s Impact on the Machine Tool Industry
Today’s post is a guest post from Allied Analytics, LLP. Overview: The infectious coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) or also known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has infected approximately 62.8 million people globally with 1.46 million fatalities since December …
Mastering the Machine
In 2013, I created a document called Mastering the Machine, a 26 page e-book about planning and building a machine or production line with an emphasis on documentation. I had just started my business again after spending 6 years working …
The Case for Ladder Logic
Lately I have seen a lot of posts promoting Structured Text on forums and Linked In. Structured Text is one of the 5 (or 6) standard PLC languages described in IEC 61131-3. While I have used ST in the past …