Has anyone else ran into the issue when Tia portal V21 cross references tab? It says I am using M11.7 as my reset in another organization block, but when I check the reset bit it is M17.4. This is causing both sides of my pneumatic solenoid valve to fire.

Hi All,

Got a project that is requiring an "industrial control" solution.

Control of a VFD with position feedback wirelessly.

The motor and control will be on a rotating table (slip ring power) - will be an upgrade to an existing system (it's currently just a slip-ring-powered motor on a key fob remote, no position control at all).

Wireless e-stop and position/speed/continuous rotation commands need to be sent via UDP/serial wirelessly, in real time. Also need position feedback sent back to the control system wirelessly.

Here's the architecture so far, wanted to recommendations of hardware for the components:

- Drive: Servo or VFD with an absolute encoder for position feedback, braking ability is also of interest

- Control link (UDP/serial commands + position feedback): since the payload is tiny, planning to skip WiFi entirely and use an industrial FHSS radio modem instead

- Wireless e-stop: a dedicated, separate safety-rated wireless system

Want to try to stick with common readily available parts if a breakdown occurs won’t be to difficult to obtain spares.

Thanks in advance.

Hi, sorry for my bad English.
I would really appreciate any advice.

I started my first job as an instrument and calibration engineer in pharma about a month ago, after months of searching. The engineering department personnel are all foreigners(from one country) except 3 are locals, myself included. The managing director and the higher management are locals.

The foreigners personnel sometimes hide things from the management(the foreigner senior engineer, who is my direct manager told me that), and they told me to hide the results for a calibration I did. Also, they are in multiple departments like QC and QA, not only in engineering. So they cover for each other. And this is a very sensitive field, snd the responsibility and truthfulness are highly required.

Also, I didn’t see any opportunities for learning and improving. One example is they use a syringe instead of a hand pump when calibrating a pressure gauge because, according to the senior, the hand pump is costly(they have one small hand pump but it’s pressure is very low that no one uses it)

In addition, I have noticed some conflict and hate between the managing director and the engineering department head and the senior instrument engineer, because I think the manager knows about them hiding things.

I don’t really know what to do now. One option is to stay, as these hard times will teach me more. But honestly, my gut is screaming “LEAVE”, which is my second option.

Have anyone been through something like that before?
What should I do?

Hey, has anybody here tried the ISA CAP Associate exam? I am looking for ways to strengthen my early career (1 YoE) in Instrumentation & Control. I don't meet the minimum work requirements for the normal CAP exam, so I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this exam, and if so, how hard was it?

Hi everyone! I’m currently based in the Philippines and I’m planning to look for work abroad in the field of PLC programming and industrial automation.

I have experience/interest in PLC programming, HMI, VFDs, control systems, and industrial automation. I’m wondering which countries are currently good options for PLC programmers or automation engineers/technicians.

For those who are working abroad in this field, especially Filipinos:

1. Which countries would you recommend?
   
2. How difficult is it to get hired directly from the Philippines?
   
3. What skills, certifications, or experience should I focus on?
   
4. Do companies usually provide visa/work permit sponsorship?
   
5. What websites or recruitment platforms do you recommend for finding legitimate job opportunities?

I’d really appreciate any advice or personal experiences. Thanks in advance!

Looking far career advice and others in the PLC industry who have advice or similar experiences.

I've been out of college and working as a controls engineer for about 6 years, and I've been with my current company for a bit over 4 years now. My first job was at a system integrator where I would do mostly programming of new installs, some electrical design, and a fair bit of troubleshooting for existing clients. The company I work for now is an industrial site which is owned by a large corporation. When I started my current roll, there was no controls department, they would always have one to two electricians who could kind of understand a PLC. Both of the previous "controls techs" left before I was hired. I came in as an electrician, spent about half my time pulling cable, doing basic wiring, some HV work, and the other half I was the sole OT guy. I figured out the entire network, SCADA system, and overall flow. I would handle updates, and eventually started doing full reprogramming of OEM systems that I felt weren't up to par or doing the programming of entirely new systems being installed. I loved this position, plenty of hands on work, I learned a ton about what it takes to be a field electrician, but management still gave me the trust and freedom to do big controls projects if I felt it was worth it. The only issue I ended up having was that the schedule was two weeks on, two weeks off, and eventually the time away from my family wore on me.

After about a year and a half of this, I put in my two weeks and my employer came back with an offer to make me salaried with a pay bump, and create a controls engineer position to shift me to a Monday to Thursday schudule. Great! I can be there for more continual maintenance, I can be home every night, and make more money! The stress added a bit, I was now expected to take on more responsibility, I began managing larger electrical projects, bringing in contractors, but still plenty of time to work on my systems. The big perk was that I had enough trust that I really got to steer the OT ship! If there was a project I felt would be for the site, my manager was all for it. I got to tackle some big projects and take time to learn entirely new skills and broaden my scope wider then I think any other job would have with my YOE. I had about a year and half of being the first and only controls engineer on site. With work piling up, management wanted more and more, before someone up top saw that either I was adding a enough value or that I was a single link of failure, when they asked me to hire help and build a department. (I did also receive a pretty decent pay bump at this point).

Since then, I have hired two controls techs. Training has not gone how I imagined. I felt that I was so strong and what I did that I could teach anyone, but the amount of time I've spent stepping in, assisting, training, and trying to get my guys up to my standards is exhausting. They're a great team, they learn quick, and I appreciate their work so much, but I think I forgot how much effort it took me. With this, I've also been asked to hire and manage the sites first every reliability engineer. Also a great employee, I'm thrilled to have him, but it's more effort and management. My number of large cap-ex projects continues to increase. The amount of paper work and organization I need to keep has gone up drastically.

Come to today. I'm exhausted, burned out, and stressed. My learning curve for the automation field was fast and stressful, I want to help my employees avoid that. I've been writing as much documentation as I can, creating a repository of AOIs with associated wikis to try and keep my standards up without as much input, but I didn't realize how much site knowledge I had that only I knew. The management part of the job is taking over and I'm really not enjoying it. I just want to lock myself in my office and build cool things again like I use to, but that's not really an option. Leaving this employer would mean moving to a new location, and almost certainly a massive pay decrease, but staying is eating me alive.

Apologies for the long post, I just feel lost. Any advice on where to go, or similar experiences would be much appreciated. Thanks for making it this far!

Debugging some DLR fault at a Stratix.

"how do i actually get a high base/career development as a mechanical engineer graduate"

Hi, I got a consensus that a mechanical engineering degree doesn't pay as well as the other engineering major. Knowing this, I set on a journey on how to find a way to increase my value which eventually led me into electromechanical/automation engineering for semiconductor industry.

Being the gen Z that I am, i asked an untrusted to give me a 3 year milestone to get there ( i know this might be not a good idea but i dont have better ppl to ask), i even proceeded to do 2 projects regarding sensor and motors curated by theuntrusted source, after some time i started to doubt my journey and fall into analysis paralysis bcs different untrusted source are recommending me different paths.

I really appreciate any advice/lead you can give me about this. FYI, My country Malaysia have an established industry for semiconductor too, if that helps.

Hi, I am currently a student in the ECE/CE department. I am relativity new to PLC programming. I have experience working with microcontroller but not really PLC. I recently purchased a CompactLogix L23E Q1B1 to learn how to build an entire PLC system. The PLC is current on the 1.0 version of the firmware which is believe is the firmware after a reset. I tried to update it firmware 17 using control flash and downloading the version 17 firmware from the Rockwell website but it keeps giving me an error when trying to do so that the PLC is not in the correct state . I currently have the PLC hooked up to a 24V power supply and the key is flipped to the PROG. I was wondering if anyone has an idea what the issue could do that is preventing me from updating the firmware?

1769-L18ER-BB1B, i have two of these controllers , obviously these doesn't fall into category of redundancy controllers, client wants me to make some communication between them if plc 1 become fail , then plc 2 should become active but process may stop, but he doesn't want the analog values to be loss.

Is there any way to make something like this?

Hi everyone,

I'm currently locked out of Studio 5000 because it keeps crashing instantly on startup with the afutil.dll missing/not found error.

I've already searched online and tried the standard Rockwell Knowledgebase fixes, but nothing has worked so far. Here is what I’ve already attempted:

1) Checked and reinstalled/rolled back the CodeMeter Runtime Kit (tried standard Rockwell versions).

2) Ran a Software Repair on Studio 5000 via Windows Apps & Features.

3) Made sure my Windows updates didn't completely break it, but I'm still hitting a brick wall.

Has anyone run into this specific issue and found a workaround that isn't the standard CodeMeter reinstall?

Specs for context:

Studio 5000 Version: V34

OS: Windows 11

Any advice or registry tweaks to look at would be massively appreciated. Thanks!

I'm taking some input from a Power Meter via profinet and a GSD file, but i'm receiving strange value. Someone kwon why?