On Site Panelbuilding
Hello from Miami again! I do feel bad for all of you who are stuck in the frozen Northland, my home town near Nashville, Tennessee is supposed to get 8-12 inches of snow in the next couple of days. Its …
Author: Frank
Electrical Engineer and business owner from the Nashville, Tennessee area. I also play music, Chess and Go.
Applications and Inventions
This week’s post is intended to explain a little bit about the applications process machine builders use when quoting custom machinery. Just because a machine is customized to produce a specific product doesn’t mean it is unique or necessarily qualifies …
SCADA and HMIs
I often get asked when teaching my Siemens and Allen-Bradley classes the difference between SCADA systems and HMIs. While there can be some overlap, especially now with enhanced HMI capabilities on CE computers or thin clients, there are some fairly …
Automate 2015
Back before I got into the integration and machine building business, I worked for a couple of different controls distributors/manufacturer’s representatives. Prior to the invention of the internet by Al Gore, industrial trade shows were the best way for vendors …
Random Thoughts 1
Hello again from Miami. This time I drove down here since I needed to spend a couple of weeks on my current project, upgrading a juice and beverage compounding system. When I’m out of town for a long time its …
After the Training – Maximizing your Investment
Greetings from not-so-sunny Jupiter, Florida. Despite the lack of sunshine, the weather is nice. I have spent the last several weeks teaching in my home state of Tennessee, and… brrr… Minnesota. I am down here for a couple of weeks …
World Manufacturing Status
This is a cool table I got from the World Bank website showing the value added manufacturing rankings for countries around the world. It is easy to do some simple analysis using the table on the website; pick a range …
Industrial Ethernet
Today’s post is dedicated to my new friends at Poseidon Industries, a manufacturer of stone cutting and processing equipment, located in Punta Gorda, Florida. Last week I did some software work there and had some discussions on industrial Ethernet protocols …
More on Specifications
A couple of months ago I wrote a post on cross referencing; that is, finding a replacement for an existing component. In this post I’d like to elaborate a little bit on specifying components in general. When replacing a component …
Books or Websites on Control Panel Design
Today’s post is in answer to a question from Josh: Frank, Thanks for the informative site and your passion for teaching. I have found a lot of useful information on here. I wanted to ask you if you could possibly …