Its never too late to learn something new. Today I learn two new devices. The FP0 PLC and the DIN rail power supply. First up, the Panasonic FP0 PLC. Around 9.30am Mr. James gave me the PLC, a connector, the serial cable and a power supply and asked me to test the PLC. This is the smallest PLC I've come across so far. Its kinda cute too. Alright the picture:

The small green box is the PLC. Just in case you can't spot it. The PLC is powered by a 24V DC unlike the normal bulky PLCs that consumes the household 230V AC supply. To program it, the user needs the FPWIN GR software. The interface is shown on the laptop. Its a simple PLC meant for basic applications. The software is quite easy to use. Programming is quite easy even for a newbie like me.

Few minutes later two customers came in to purchase the PLC and the serial cable. He also brought with him his laptop to install the programming software and test the PLC. They went back as soon as they were satisfied with it.

Oh, I forgot to mention one event that happened before the PLC customers walked in. A chinese lad came to purchase a black Sanken inverter. He said that he will connect the inverter to a switch to run a motor and a potentiometer to control the speed. He wants us to demonstrate how to do that so we unpacked the inverter and connected it to the control box and the potentiometer. Then I taught him how to program the inverter. Feels good to be a teacher! 

Ok, the next new device. The DIN Rail power supply. This power supply outputs 24VDC and needs 230VAC to operate. Just like the normal switching power supply I have posted few days back. This PSU is specifically designed to be mounted inside a control box on the DIN Rail. The DIN Rail is a long metal plate that is used to mount relays, PLCs and power supplies. Imagine a cloth hanger. The DIN Rail is the hanger and all the relays, PLCs are the clothes. 

Initially the output was 24-point-something volts but I adjusted it to be precisely 24.00Volts by adjusting the potentiometer at the PSU. Here's the picture of that PSU:

That's it for today's activity. No fieldwork so we stayed at the office after lunch. Tomorrow is going to be either a great success or a complete failure. I don't know what to expect tomorrow because I'm not familiar with the device that we will install there. Mr. James asked us to be at the rendezvous point near the office and we will convoy with another group of people to the factory. Bandar Maharani, here I come!!

The final week is finally here! After enduring ten weeks of challenges and unforgiving traffic, its coming to an end very soon. As predicted morning traffic has increased tremendously and arrival time is delayed by almost twenty minutes! Had breakfast at the same restaurant since Day 1. They know too well what I would order for drinks. My favorite teh tarik is served as soon as I entered the restaurant. I don't even have to tell them. They will know. Nice~

Unfortunately this will be my last week having breakfast there. Its a great place to lepak and get some rest after one hour of driving. The teh tarik is sure a great beverage to refresh my mind!

No fieldwork today. But there's definitely one tomorrow and the day after. In the morning we did some troubleshooting on the PLC software. The laptop is unable to detect the PLC using the Serial to USB cable. But after a while my collie managed to fix it and now we can download and upload the ladder diagram to or from the PLC using the USB port.

Tomorrow we will be tasked to re-install an inverter in a label manufacturing factory in Cheras. The same factory  I went into couple of weeks ago. The motor that is being controlled by the new inverter that I have installed has an overcurrent fault so the factory technician removed the new inverter and replaced it with the older inverter but now they want us to re-install the new inverter and set some overcurrent limit in the inverter.

Mr. James said that we will be going for a fieldwork in Johor Bahru on Wednesday! The factory there is replacing a controller unit that is connected to a Toshiba inverter. Our task is to install that controller unit and wire it to the inverter. The factory staff has provided us with all the technical documents of the controller so in the mean time we were asked to read through the manuals and technical drawings. This controller is not a PLC and I'm not familiar with this product so I really have to read through the manuals thoroughly before the trip. Its going to be a one-day trip. I hope everything will go smoothly that day.

Mr. James went out at about 4pm without us so we have almost nothing to do. Went back at 5.25pm today. While I was waiting for the traffic light to turn green at an intersection, something awkward happened. A teenage girl about 15-18 years of age (I think) inside an SUV beside my car smiled and waved at me! She's definitely looking at me because I saw her eyes looking directly at me! I was like, "what the heck? Do I know you??" I kinda ignored her. I should have at least smiled back!! D'oh!!

Great! Now I have a secret admirer! *blushing* The driver of the SUV sped off as soon as the traffic light was green and I never saw her again. I'm sure that girl was not of someone I know because I'm sure none of my relatives, friends or even my neighbour drives a Rexton. Maybe she was just goofing around and thinks that I'm 17 years old like what other people say about me..

Thursday's post..getting incredibly lazy to update this blog daily..As planned, went to renew my driving licence and had told Mr. James the day before. Simple task but I had planned my journey in detail. Surveyed the nearest JPJ branch to the office on JPJ website and Google Maps and found one at Section 7, Bangi just a few kilometers away from UNITEN. Gathered as much "intel" as I could like asking what documents do I need, how the process is going to be like and even called up JPJ just to be sure. Also planned what route, which highway to take to get there and even estimated how the traffic is going to be like. Man, I've been watching too many military movies! Everything is very detailed and tactical including back-up plans!

All in all, the task went very smooth. Better than expected. Mission accomplished! Bye bye, Big Red P Sticker! I'm going to miss you! You've witnessed so many of my driving achievements and blunders including my first accident! (I was not at fault, mind you!) Had breakfast at Section 8 at the same restaurant where I used to hang out with my friends just to bring back memories. Finally arrived at the office at 11am.

As soon as I entered the office, I saw my collie wiring up a small and brand-new AC motor. Its kinda cute to me..remember the AC motor I posted on Day 40 of my blog? I imagined that the motor has gave birth to this cute little motor..haha Anyway, here's the picture of the newborn motor:  

It is quite small. The one used to grind ice to make ais kacang or ABC. Our task is to wire up the motor to an inverter and demonstrate the features to a customer. I connected the motor to the control box and tested the feature. Few minutes later the customer arrived and I demonstrated what the switches do and they seem to be quite amused with it.

No fieldwork today. In the afternoon a guy came to discuss some problems with the PLC and the program software. Went back at 6pm today but traffic wasn't as bad as I had expected!

Yes, that's right. Just like what Miss Goh said, "Wah, now you're the Sifu aa!". Not to brag but it feels great to be a "senior" member in the company. More responsibility means more challenge! Sometimes its fun especially the teaching part! I love to teach. And when I teach, I teach enthusiastically! Some of my friends back at the university love the way I taught them and often seek for my help in their studies! Its been a pleasure doing that. I secretly feel proud of myself every time they say, "Kucing..err..Sifu, boleh tolong ajar camne nak buat soalan ni tak?"

On Tuesday I taught my collie about how to program the green Sanken Inverter, one of my favorite inverter. I told him that the first thing to look for in the manual is the circuit diagram and the terminal names. Then I showed him the control box and explained what it is used for. After connecting the potentiometer and the control box, I taught him about the programming. Gosh, its MUCH simpler than that pathetic Telemechanique inverter! Just ONE program code and the potentiometer is alive!

After lunch we were given a DC drive by Mr. James and asked to try it out and check the output voltage. But when we power up the drive, the output voltage is only half the maximum voltage when the potentiometer is at maximum. This implies that when a motor is connected to it, when the potentiometer is at maximum, the speed is only half that of the rated speed of the motor. Tried adjusting all the knobs at the drive but to no avail.

No fieldwork on Tuesday so we spent the rest of the day browsing the catalogs and manuals inside the laptop.

Today is mostly about PLC. We encountered problems installing the software needed to program the Siemens PLC. At the brink of solving all of the problems but we looked at the time, it was almost 5pm and Miss Goh asked us to go home at 5pm so we tidy up the table and went back.

Tomorrow I have no choice but to take half-day leave. I need to renew my P driving licence and its been due since yesterday. There goes my clean attendance record! D'oh!!!

Getting lazy to update this blog daily..but its not compulsory anyway so no harm done. Ok lets start off with activities I did yesterday morning. Me and Mr. James went to deliver some items to two big factories in Petaling Jaya. Both factories are actually the main manufacturing plants of a famous food and body care products in the market! But we did not went into the manufacturing plant. Just at the technician's room to deliver the items. Security is tight! The security guard at the first factory is not friendly at all! He even scolded me for not wearing safety shoes! But he's just doing his job. No hard feelings.

Went back to the office after lunch and soon after I was given an inverter and asked to connect its transistor output terminal to a relay. Then he asked me to connect another relay that is used to run the inverter by connecting it to the inverter switch. The setup is shown below.

This is actually to simulate the problem we encountered in the Cheras labeling factory I went into last week. The PSU is to simulate the state of a PLC signal (on or off). Not much problem encountered and I managed to connect all the relays and the PSU and get it to work just like how Mr. James wants.

Enough for yesterday. In the morning today Mr. James went out so I got almost nothing to do in the office. Then at around 11.30am Mr. James asked me to go to a rubber factory to assist one of his technician to solve a DC drive related problem in the factory. Its the same rubber factory I went into on Day 1 of my blog. 

The DC drive is actually similar to an inverter but it outputs DC voltage to run a motor. The problem is the motor is not running when it is powered up. This is due to a fault on the rotary encoder connected to the drive. The technician opened the encoder cable casing and found that one of the wire in it has been disconnected! So I soldered the wire and then the factory technician took over and plugged in the cable casing into the encoder. The machine is powered up and the motor is running! For a minute there I thought that the problem was solved and I could go back early but to my dismay, when the factory technician turned on a switch, the motor at the end of it did not run!

Mr. James technician tried his best to solve this problem but was unable to do so because the instruction manual for the DC drive is not available. He will come revisit this problem tomorrow morning with me. Went back at 5.30pm from Shah Alam and traffic was already abnormal. Quite a stressful day today. I was standing for hours observing the technician! 

This post was supposed to be published yesterday! But I was quite exhausted yesterday and slept early. Anyway, yesterday's traffic was abnormal! Took me more than 75 minutes to get to the office! No accidents, no stalled vehicles, just heavy traffic volume.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened in the morning, but I went to two big factories after lunch. First Mr. James took me to a food manufacturing factory in Pulau Indah, Klang. We went for a short detour to rendezvous (run-de-vou) with a technician at the nearby petrol station. Arrived at the factory and met with the factory's electrician and he brought us to the nugget manufacturing department. But before we were allowed in, we have to put on the hair-cover, face mask, a jacket and a pair of boots. Its part of the visitor's procedure to enter the manufacturing plant. 

As soon as we entered the plant, the smell of tempura sweeps through my nose buds and immediately I'm craving for nuggets! Turns out the nuggets made here are one of the famous brand available in all hypermarkets! Anyway, we were called in to download and save the PLC program from all of the machines. No pictures taken so I'll try to describe as best as I can. The machine is actually a very long conveyor with motor and mechanical devices along the way. Each group of mechanical devices and motors are controlled by a PLC. Our job was to download all the program from all of the PLCs. Mr. James technician was doing all the work so I just observed what he did. He encountered some compatibility problem so I wrote down the PLC model and will return some other day.

At the end of the conveyor there's a place where pre-cooked nuggets are rolled in and ready for packing. Here the smell of tempura is even more intense! If only I can just reach one, just one of the nuggets and devour it slowly to savour the taste...*drooling* but I can't because there's a guy there making sure the quantity is correct.   

Next we went deep into the palm-oil plantations of Teluk Panglima Garang to a furniture factory to propose a solution to the factory's dilemma regarding an inverter. The problem is that the display device of an inverter spoils prematurely due to frequent pressing on the keypad. So Mr. James proposed to them to use external switches and potentiometer to minimize dependency on the inverter keypad. They're speaking in chinese. I can't make out what they are saying.

Being inside that factory is quite suffocating. The smell of thinner, spirit, varnish and timber are everywhere and highly concentrated. I don't think my lungs can survive very long if I work there. Lucky we were there just for a short while.

Two contradictory workplaces. One energizes your appetite the other destroys it. One has a strict cleanliness protocols the other has none. One has air-cond the other just free open air. Either way, they share one common goal, to manufacture as much as possible daily and meet customer demands.

The eighth Monday. Waking up in the morning seem a little difficult today after a 3-day holiday. Back to the same 'ol routine.

Seriously, life feels like a big program code! Even when I'm half awake, its automatic! Are we turning into a robot? I hope not.

Anyway, today I learn about two new device. The touchscreen PLC and the door sensor. In the morning its about the touchscreen PLC. Yes, you read correctly. TOUCHSCREEN! Like an iPhone! Well not that sophisticated but close enough. Mr. James just asked me to go through the software so I was not able to power it up and test the touchscreen feature. Too bad. Here's the device. Looks like a tablet PC from this view. Feels like you can surf the internet with that thing!

After lunch I was given the door sensor to test out. We are waiting for the green light from the customer for us to install this device so in the meantime Mr. James asked me to familiarize with the settings and features. Nothing out of the ordinary, its just like a proximity sensor with a brain. The relay is to simulate the door opening and closing. My workstation is quite a mess today because of a BIG display device occupying almost 3/4 of my workstation. Its the big black rectangular thing with white wording.

I just realized that the internship is actually your bootcamp prior to the REAL working life later. I discovered many of my weaknesses through fieldworks and when dealing with customers. I get to test my determination level to the max when installing inverters or troubleshooting a pre-installed ones. This is the time that people forgive you for making mistakes. This is the time where guidance is all around you and readily available. I don't think you'll have all of that after graduating later. 

There's plenty of daily situations that I can use to brush up on my weaknesses especially interpersonal skills. A  skill highly on demand among employers nowadays. Like one of my favorite quotes, "Humans cannot achieve PERFECTION, but there's always room for IMPROVEMENT" I guess I have to really utilize the last few weeks to improve on my weaknesses as much as I can. Indeed, internships can TOTALLY change or enhance a person's personality, way of thinking and of course, intelligence. But that's not all what internships can do to you. To me, at the end of it you'll become a completely different person!

Oops, this is getting too long so I'll stop right here. By the way, I saw on the news that our convoy to deliver goods and supplies to our brothers in Palestine was attacked by our arch nemesis, the Israeli Army. It seems clear that MERCY is not in their dictionary, and so does HUMANE. Maybe they have vocabularies like ARROGANCE, HATE and VIOLENCE on the first few pages of their dictionary. Let us all pray for the safety of our convoy and our fellow brothers in Palestine. I will do a "Solat Hajat" tonight after Isya' prayer. Its the least I can do.

No office work today so this is going to be short. Went out almost 90% of the working hour today.

Something peculiar happened in the morning. BLACKOUT!! Even the restaurant where I had breakfast nearby was affected! According to the neighbor, the blackout started since 12.30am last night! We are helpless without electricity! No internet, no fax, no light and no air-con! Lucky the phone was working. I was lost and don't know what to do because I can't power up anything! Now I realize why big big factories suffer HUGE profit losses because of no electricity. Was at the office until 10.30am but the electricity still did not recover. I wonder what had happened at the substation..

Feeling unproductive, we went out to the Sungai Besi factory to install the photo sensor I mentioned yesterday and to solve that inverter dilemma once and for all. Mr. Alex was there when we arrived at the factory. His task is to install the two sets of photo sensor and I was asked to concentrate on the inverter problem. Recall that the inverter is unable to deactivate when the switch at the inverter is in "OFF" state. The proposed solution was to bypass a relay that connects the switch with another brand new relay to isolate the signals coming from the PLC.

Mr. Alex had taught me how to connect the relay and in fact I have tested his teachings on Day 28 of my blog. Diligently wired the relays inside that dust-infested control panel. Fortunately for me, there was no cockroach in there or otherwise I would freak out and embarrass myself in front of the workers! Occasionally doubted my understanding but Mr. James came and enlightened me with the answers. Did a tiny mistake but later Mr. Alex came and fixed it.

Turned on the big machine to test the new solution. I was very anxious worrying that it might not work. About one minute after the machine runs, its time for the inverter of interest to run and test the new solution. Amazingly it worked! The motor runs and stops when it is supposed to! Problem solved! What a relief! I can sleep well now..

Went to Old Town Kopitiam in Puchong for a drink. This time Mr. James INSISTED that I order a meal. Wow, Thanks Mr. James!!

Still waiting for the visiting lecturer to visit me. Mr. James say that he still did not receive any calls from UNITEN. I just hope that this is not going to be a surprise visit because like I said before, me and Mr. James are like, "macam biskut chipsmore, kejap-kejap ada kejap-kejap tinggal habuk je.." On the other hand, its almost three weeks since my collie left the company. Still waiting for a new collie to assist me in my fieldwork and to fill that loneliness void in me. There's nothing I can do but to wait for both events to occur. The wait is sometimes mentally painful.

Week number SEVEN! Here we go! Hey, wake up! Its 6.30am! Go and iron your clothes NOW! That tiny voice inside my head won't stop bothering me until I get off that bed! Half awaken, went to the cupboard and took a set of attire and went to the ironing board. Sometimes life feels like a big computer program. The 5 senses act like an input device while the hands and legs outputs the preprogrammed tasks. The brain is obviously the central processing unit. Can somebody come and program my brain to be like Mr. Einstein?

Alright, enough with the nonsense. Today has got nothing to do with inverters, AGAIN! No fieldwork today, just another day in the office. But tomorrow I will definitely go out, according to Mr. James. In the morning I did some filing work, then Mr. James gave me a set of gadgets consists of a switching PSU, weird-looking rotary encoder and its best friend, the counter. Whenever you see a rotary encoder, there's definitely a counter connected to it. Supposedly, when the rotary encoder rotates one unit, the counter will count one unit and resets when it reaches a certain preset value. I may have discussed this on the early days of my blog post. The setup is shown below:

What a funny looking encoder! At first glimpse one may think this is the code-manipulator-thingy of a safe! In fact, it looks just like one! But beware, your eyes can fool you! Ok back to the story. The reason why the switching PSU is needed is because the encoder can only accept 5VDC as input unlike its best friend which can consume the household 230VAC like a hungry beast! In short, when everything is connected properly, the counter will reset when the encoder completes one revolution. 

After lunch Mr. James asked me to play around with the Panasonic PLC. He asked me to program the PLC to control some input device and outputs to a relay. Before he went out, he asked me to connect the photoelectric switch and the relay to the PLC. With the help and guidance of Mr. James I managed to connect them and start work on the programming. The setup is shown below:

Initially I only used a single switch and relay to simplify my program and to start learning slowly. Mr. James went out at 2.30pm so I have until 5.30pm to experiment with the ladder diagram and the PLC. Again I would like to stress out that PLC programming is totally different than PIC18 programming. There's no "code" for a specific task, only "symbols" that can be either ON of OFF. Not to mention the limited types of symbols a ladder diagram can have (sometimes less than 10 symbols) unlike the 77 instructions of a PIC18. For beginners, its tougher than the MicroP subject! But I slowly learn and managed to do a simple input-output program that works.

Went back at 5.25pm today. Traffic was amazing! The journey back took a record-breaking 35 minutes! Normally the drive back took about 50 to 75 minutes. Maybe because coincidentally most of the traffic lights are green along Persiaran Kewajipan. If only life is that easy.. 

Time really flows when you're enjoying yourself! Like I said in the early days of my internship, time flows like a rapid river. But now the "drowning" part is no longer an issue because I am quite used to the nature of work here. Yesterday was quite a historical day for me, now that I've got only 30 days left of my internship and the "activeness" of this blog. Looking back on Day 1, I was like "Err..how to test the inverter??", "Err..what is that, Sir? How to use it??". I was very dependent on my collie but its totally different now, "Ok its done, Sir! Lets power it up!", "I can do that! No problem!" Less question marks, more exclamation marks now in my conversations. No, its not that I am shouting at my boss, just to express my excitement. Ooh, the memories!

Today has got nothing to do with inverters! I learn something new and different today. In the morning, Mr. James asked me to build two PLC cables. He gave me a diagram and the cables needed and left. I took the first few minutes to analyze and understand the diagram. The diagram given to me is exactly this:

The phone cable is given as is so I just need to solder the other end of that cable to a serial connector according to the diagram given. Notice that terminals 7 and 8 needs to be jumped together so I need to figure out how to do that. First, I soldered pins 2, 3 and 5. Not an easy task for beginners like me, I have to strip such tiny wires! Open up your home phone plug and see how puny it is! Then the soldering part. I need at least three hands to get it done easily! For terminals 7 and 8, I cut a small length of a paper clip and solder it at the terminals. Assembled the casing and its FINALLY done! Tested the continuity using the multimeter at the soldered terminals and it worked! ALL of them! What a relief! Otherwise I have to open back the casing and re-solder the wires! Phew~ Job well done! Later in the evening the customer came to collect the cables and some other things he purchased. 

After lunch and Friday prayer Mr. James gave me a DC drive to test it out. The DC drive is powered by either 110VAC or 230VAC and outputs up to 200VDC to run a DC motor. Connected the power cables and the potentiometer and switched it on. With the supervision of Mr. James, I measured the output voltage as Mr. James turned the potentiometer up and down. The voltage fluctuates accordingly (or if connected to a DC motor, its the speed that we are controlling). Everything is ok so I switched it off and pack. Here's the setup:

An indian customer came to pick up the driver and a voltage regulator at 5.30pm. Demonstrated how both devices worked. Also explained to him other features of the DC drive until he is satisfied with my explanations. I went back at 6.30pm after all the demonstration and explanation is done. Like any company's policy, customer is always FIRST so I have to make sure I did everything I could to attain his satisfaction before I can go home.

Now that I have hit the half-way mark, the only way to go now is FORWARD. And I'm looking FORWARD to it! Yesterday's HISTORY, today's a JOURNEY, tomorrow's a MYSTERY! (credits to Mr. Anonymous for this quote)

Shoot! I'm two days late! This post was supposed to be published two days ago! The reason is that I was involved with an activity in UNITEN yesterday. My beloved club, Persatuan Pembimbing Rakan Sebaya (PRSUNITEN) organized the Training of Trainers to prepare the committees for "Program Pintar". I was handling an activity similar to "explorace" together with the President and a few other committees. It was a great day!

I have successfully completed one-third of my internship! Status report: no broken equipment, full attendance, no "I can't take this anymore!!" attitude..yup, I'm still in good shape. Last Friday also happens to be my collie's last day in the office! I'll be all alone next week!

Summary of Friday's activity, I learned how to connect two power supplies in series to amplify its voltage and I learned about the Panasonic PLC and its programmer.

The power supply is actually an inverter. In converts a 240V AC to 48V DC but the output voltage can be adjusted up to 56V. The customer wants a 110V DC output so we connected two of them in series and adjusted the voltage. The setup is shown below:

Then I learned about the Panasonic PLC. The technique is pretty similar to a microcontroller. The PLC is connected to the PC with a serial cable, the program can then be uploaded and modified and downloaded back to the PLC. The only major difference is the programming language. The ladder diagram can be very difficult for beginners like me. 

Now that my collie has left the company, I'll be all alone for a while. Mr. James is still looking for interns to replace him. I am not very confident but hopefully everything that I learned from my collie is enough for the days ahead. Whatever that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Sorry for the late update, was busy figuring out the traffic light program. Nothing much to report anyway. Went out for fieldwork in after lunch and that was it. Now the full story.

In the morning I continued trying the traffic light program. Worked on two traffic light system. Only have one issue before I can proceed to the third and the last traffic light. But this one issue really gets my head spinning. Tried a lot of method but when implemented, the whole sequence is disrupted because most of the variables or switches are dependent on each other. When I change this, that switch will not function and so on. Or is it that my approach to the problem is wrong because PLC programming is not my cup of tea? PIC18 and C programming is quite straight forward. You really have to consider more than three things at once in PLC programming.

After lunch Mr. James brought me and my collie to install the INVT inverter in a plastic manufacturing factory at Semenyih. Went pass UNITEN on the way to the factory. Oh, the memories! Ok back to the story. Me and my collie installed and programmed the inverter to meet the customer's specifications and requirements. That was a breeze. Learned new things about a few functions of the inverter and its done. The factory technician seem to be satisfied with our work. Job well done. 

Then we went to factories around Semenyih to collect some faulty items from the customer and that was it. Sorry no pictures for today. Getting lazy to snap pictures lately.

A brand new week, brand new adventure awaits! Can't wait to explore them all!

Today's traffic was a breeze. Most of the traffic lights are green. Slowed down but still arrived at Puchong before 8am. Speaking of traffic lights, today is all about them, literally! As soon as the office was opened, i was given my first assignment by Mr. James. Its about PLC! I was tasked to design a PLC program to control four traffic lights that runs sequentially. PLC is quite an alien to me. Have only been exposed to it briefly in Control Systems subject. Learned about it on the web but quite a challenge for me to comprehend it.

Like I said before, it uses the ladder diagram to program it. Its TOTALLY different from the usual C++, assembly and Boolean Algebra programming. Yes one would need to construct the flowchart prior to program using any language listed above but converting a flowchart to a ladder diagram is tougher than I thought! Before I go further, lets refresh on what a PLC is.

PLC is a replacement of a myriad of relays that controls a machine. Think of it like a million transistor cramped into a single integrated circuit. The transistors represent relays and the IC is the PLC. Except that a single PLC device has very limited input and output relays. A PLC can come from many different brand such as Omron, Siemens, Toshiba and Schneider. Each brand has its own software for programming but the technique does not differ much from each other. Mostly the only difference is the interface. Today I'm using PLC from Schneider and the name of the program bundled with it is ZelioSoft 2.

The first moments was extremely difficult for me. I have no idea what to do, what this symbol stands for, how to simulate or in short, I know NOTHING!! but that never stopped me. I remember there's one quote posted somewhere in UNITEN that goes something like this, "The purpose of education is for the student to educate themselves". That quote kept me going. I'm not just going to stare at the monitor hoping that I will magically understand something! Lets try something out!

After a few minutes fiddling with the icons, I started to go, "Oooooooooooo macam tu rupanya...". With additional help from Mr. James, I begin to understand the logic of each icons and what they do. Vital key statements from Mr. James like "To activate this you must have the coil", "When this coil is on it will activate this switch.." assisted in my understanding tremendously. The help files are a great help too. Here's what the program looks like and what I have done so far:

With trial and error through the simulator, I slowly find a suitable program sequence to get a desired output sequence. So far I've almost successfully completed the first two traffic lights. Still have a few issues to solve before moving on to the third and the fourth traffic light. To me this is about the toughness of the MicroP subject. Thankfully I managed to learn a lot about it in just one day.

Today I learned two key attributes an engineer must acquire that is to be able to solve a problem with very limited information and resources, and to be able to learn new things quickly using whatever means available. 

Third day in the office..everything starts to feel like a routine. Starting to get used with the usual morning traffic jam. I wonder how my parents can survive traffic like this every single day!

Today is all about inverters. Not just on how to use it, but to program it as well. But the programming method is nowhere near programming a PIC18. Its much simpler than that. And its kind of fun too. I'll tell you how to program an inverter in a short while. Here's the setup to test an inverter:

The green box is the Sanken's Samco e-Series Inverter. This is the inverter that i was trying to explain in Day 1 of my blog. It is connected to the control box. If you have read my previous post, the control box can function as a power supply but that feature is not used here. Only the six switches on the casing is used. Then it is connected to the three-phase motor. This is the motor that the inverter is controlling. There's a potentiometer too but its not pictured here. Now the programming part. See the control buttons and the display panels? That's the keyboard and the monitor. There are many parameters that we need to initialize and test. This is where the manual comes in. In it are codes to access specific functions like setting switch 1 to reverse mode, set switch 3 frequency, restoring factory setting and many more. Its fun to modify the frequency and see the speed of the motor changing after setting the switch! Got to be careful though, a customer had paid for that!

One key attribute an engineer should have is FLEXIBILITY. After I'm done playing with my new toy learning how to test the inverter, Mr. James gave me and my collie to test another inverter but from a different brand. Now the whole process starts all over again. The programming codes are different so we have to familiarize ourselves with the new command format. Great! Now I can program almost any brand of inverter! But please give me the manual as well..

No fieldwork today, but Miss Goh told me that we'll be going out tomorrow..my collie tought me some basics about programming a PLC and wrap up the day. (Thanks man!)

After three days here I'm beginning to reconsider what major I'm going to take. Initially I planned to major in Computer Engineering but now I feel like taking Control and Automation Engineering since my internship mainly deals on PLC and automation products and i'm beginning to fall in love with it like it!

Feels great to have survived the first day! Starting to get used to everything. No more "What if I'm lost in the highway" dilemma. Now I know where are the places to eat, pray, convenience stores and petrol stations. Best of all, everything is nearby! Its very convenient to work in this part of Puchong. Slowly I'm starting to develop a map of Puchong in my mind. 

As soon as I entered the office, me and my collie were given an assignment that is to troubleshoot a faulty customer's motor driver. Remember the servo motor I mentioned on my first interview? We are revisiting that problem. Forget the motor, our task is to troubleshoot the faulty motor driver. Firstly disconnect the CW (clockwise) ports of the faulty driver, connect to a working driver (the small silver box), connect that to a power supply and a brand new stepper motor (the smaller motor). Then both drivers are turned on but the rate of speed change of the motor is not uniform. My collie suggested that the root of the problem is in the faulty driver's internal circuitry.

Not long after that, we are asked to troubleshoot a newly arrived factory counter device ordered by a customer. First and foremost, we read the instruction manual and figure out the circuit connection and the required power supply. Then we started to connect the main power supply, proximity sensor and the solid-state module. Allow me to explain each device one by one. First up, the counter. The counter is the normal counter that some of you have come across in Digital Logic Design Lab. It has two outputs that will turn on or off depending on the preset counter value (at what counter value you want it to turn on). We connected the proximity sensor to provide an input signal to the counter so that the counter will start counting when the sensor is triggered and when the preset limit is met, the appropriate output will be triggered. The sensor has 3 wires, black, brown and blue. Black is connected to the signal port, Brown for input voltage and blue for grounding. Thirdly, the solid state module. It is actually a relay that provides the needed 12V for the output of the counter. I can't recall the exact function. Will explain later.

After lunch Mr. James invited me and my collie to go for another fieldwork (Yay~). This time its in an air conditioned factory in Shah Alam to troubleshoot a touch-screen PLC machine (sorry no pictures, no camera is allowed!). I learnt that the programming method is almost similar to programming a PIC18, you must have the interface software, serial cable and/or USB cable and the PLC machine. Users are able to download and upload a program to and from the PLC. But the programming is different than what I learn in MicroP Lab. Instead of using assembly programming or C++, the ladder diagram is used. Quite complicated I would say. But I was there just to observe the maintenance process. Still far from competence!

Then Mr. James brought us towards the west side of Selangor as far as Pulau Indah to deliver some stuffs to the customer. Mr. James was driving, at the rear seat it feels like "balik kampung" seeing the rural landscapes of Klang and Pulau Indah. Its good to have such view as it relaxes your mind after all that hard work. At the end of the trip, Mr. James "belanja us makan at mamak restaurant". (pardon the english!) Thanks Mr. James!

Time to prepare for tomorrow. Still have not finished writing yesterday's part of the logbook..need to stop procrastinating! But what the heck, its been a great day! There's still tomorrow and the day after..