The Big Toys
Hello from Atlanta, Georgia where I am about to teach a 4 day class on Siemens’ TIA Portal. I have been away from home for two weeks trying to finish up my project down at American Beverage Depot in Miami …
Category: Machine Assembly and Fabrication
Machine assembly and fabrication
Application: Sensor Choices 103
Today’s post concerns how sensor choices are made in real applications. I have written various posts on sensors in the past, and even participated in a Control Engineering webcast and forum last year on the topic. While I have covered …
My Little Factory – Fabricate
A couple of weeks ago I started a series called “My Little Factory”, describing a system I am building for training purposes. I plan on updating the progress on this project monthly, but today’s topic is also related. As those …
Building The Machine: A Bedtime Story
The following story is from my book Industrial Automation: Hands On (McGraw-Hill, 2013). I wrote it to illustrate how a machine or production line is concepted, purchased, designed, built and delivered. This is a pretty typical description of the procedures …
Machine Start-Ups
As I prepare for a trip to Japan and China, I am reminded of the many machine start-ups I have participated in over the past twenty years or so. One of the things I used to enjoy about project work …
Raytheon Missile Material Handling Application
In my previous life as a project engineer at Wright Industries (a Doerfer company), I worked on some projects that I couldn’t talk much about, being either government-related or potentially breaching confidentiality agreements. The project discussed in this post was …
Product Development
Last week I had the privilege of sitting in a doctor’s exam room for about 45 minutes with nothing to do. Next to me was an exam table (not the one shown above…) that brought back some old memories. Back …
Mechanics of Vibratory Equipment
The system I am currently working on is a machine that packages small plastic components. It consists of a number of hoppers with linear vibratory feeders that convey the parts into a mechanism that weighs the parts and feeds them …
Troubleshooting and Debug
The first thing a lot of engineers and technicians do when trying to isolate a problem on an automated machine is go get their laptop and use programming software to see where the issue might lie. In some cases this …
Packaging & Nalle Automation
This week I made my first sales trip for my new consulting company. I returned to Knoxville where I had my old company ACS for 10 years and paid a visit to several old customers and friends. If you have …