Hello from Tucson
As I travel on business I realized that it is more difficult to post when on the road. All of the familiar patterns are broken as I don’t have a ready plugged-in and booted up computer to sit down and …
Author: Frank
Electrical Engineer and business owner from the Nashville, Tennessee area. I also play music, Chess and Go.
How does my multimeter work?
Most people who work around electricity are familiar with multimeters. They have been around since the 1920s and used to only be available in analog form with a moving needle that pointed to several scales. Originally multimeters only measured current …
Transmission Test Stand
This small test stand was built in 2005 for Kiesler Automotive, a custom transmission builder in Maryville, Tennessee. After placing the transmission into the cradle and closing a couple of DeStaCo clamps by hand, a 2 hand anti-tiedown station is …
Choosing the Right Sensor
With all of the different types of sensors available and so many manufacturers and vendors competing for your business sometimes it can be difficult or confusing to choose the correct sensor for an application. In many cases such as detecting …
Contact Lens Inspection
This was a contact lens inspection station built in 2005 for Vistakon, a Florida company. It has 2 cameras mounted to X-Y-Z axes with similarly mounted backlighting below the moving pallet. Samples would be taken from the production lines and …
P&ID and Machine Design
The process industry has used P&ID (Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams) for many years as a method of describing the relationships between piping, instrumentation and system components. Usually this is applied to chemical, batching or fluid transfer projects and is nearly …
Build your own Conveyor
Usually it is not very economical to build your own conveyor but occasionally an application requires a product that is not readily available. There are quite a few companies that will build a custom conveyor for you but delivery time …
Spotlight on Vision
In my previous life I spent about 30-40% of my time doing vision applications. Most of the jobs I did involved using “smart cameras” which are self-contained vision systems where the frame grabber circuitry, image processing and I/O are built …
Ladder Logic 101: Where do I start?
*Note: This post was written in February of 2011. Since that time I have written a number of other posts on ladder logic you may find useful. These are listed below for your convenience: Ladder Logic 102: Organization (October 2012) …
A few thoughts on panelbuilding…
It seems like there is a constant battle between mechanical designers, electrical designers, maintenance technicians and engineers over just what a properly fabricated control panel should look like. If it were up to mechanical, the panel would be the size …