When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. First time I stumbled on this quote was like 15 years ago. Never knew what it meant back then but now realized how true it is in real life. Being an engineer is never easy. As far as the sky if compared with the typical 9 to 5 clerical desk job. The working environment is constantly changing and  gets tougher as you get better. This is what I experienced today. 

As usual I arrived in Puchong at 8am and had breakfast nearby (office opens at 9am) but today I found a new "lepak" (hangout) place near the office, at the mosque. The mosque is very new. Less than a year old I presume. Or maybe less than 6 months because its not on Google Maps and the interior is very new. Its situated at the hilltop overlooking Puchong city. Its very serene and peaceful at the mosque. I updated my logbook at the mosque and relaxed myself after an hour of driving. Here's the view from my hangout spot:

On the contrary, today is far from relaxing. Went out the whole day and feeling exhausted right now. In the morning Mr. James brought us to revisit the food factory in Shah Alam to install a counter device. Its the same factory that has a clean room I mentioned last week. This time we have back-up that is the technician from the company that makes the counter that we are going to install. But still, it took them a few hours to figure out the problem and rectify it. I did learn some new things along the way.

Then we went for lunch. Mr. James brought us to Mc Donalds for lunch!! Thanks a million Mr. James! You are so kind!!

After enjoying our meals, without further a due, we went to revisit the furniture factory in Kepong to install and troubleshoot two inverters. This time all the wiring, programming and installation is done by me and my collie. Most of the wiring part is done by my collie. Its quite confusing with all that wire inside the control panel. I find it difficult to determine which wire in the control panel controls the relay, motor and the switch. I guess that I'm not learning fast enough. Like I said, when you get better, the job gets more difficult. Unfortunately I damaged one of the potentiometer but lucky me, Mr. James has brought a compatible potentiometer and I have to replace it with his potentiometer. Sorry Mr. James!  I seriously hope that this will be the first and the last of such incident! Not done yet, we have to make sure the motors controlled by the inverters work in accordance with the customer's needs. After a few program codes and wiring, the factory supervisor is satisfied (finally!). Arrived at the office at 7.30pm and I arrived home at 8.06pm. Was speeding despite the hectic traffic..can't wait to get home!

Yes, thank you Captain Obvious! Of course two brains are better than one lonely brain! Today my collie didn't show up for work! I was quite lonely today..huhu..well not for long. Today is full of meaningful activities. Started off the day by learning a new component. The "Pilot Lamp". The pilot lamp is normally used to indicate if there's any fault in the machine. Its like an LED on steroids because it uses either 24VDC or 240VAC to power it. In my case it is used to see the state of the output of the SSR. I connected them to the output of the solid-state relay (SSR). Remember I mentioned about SSR last week? Below is how the SSR looks like. At the end of this assignment I learnt how to connect the pilot lamp. The connection is shown below. Its not clearly visible though.

Today Mr. James brought me around Shah Alam and Petaling Jaya to deliver some stuffs to the customer. Then we went to Giant Hypermarket near UNITAR. Guess what? Mr. James "belanja" me KFC at the hypermarket! Wow what a great employer! Thanks a lot Mr. James!!

Then we revisited the food factory in Shah Alam again to look at the counter. Its the same machine that I described on Day 8. Apparently the relay mechanism under the table that controls the motor and the relays are not synchronized with the other two relay mechanism. I managed to set the counter such that the open-close-open-close rate of the clamper is synchronized with the other two clampers but somehow the relays that controls the motor and something else under the table had a different on-off pattern than the rest. Quite a stressful moment I would say because I was given a time limit by Mr. James and I fail to solve the problem. But its all part of the challenge of being an engineer. Feels great to have experienced such a situation.

Then we went to an LED and semiconductor manufacturing factory to inspect their UPS system. Too bad the UPS system is outside of the factory, away from the manufacturing plant. I wish to see the doping process of a semiconductor and how to fabricate the LED. Ok back to the story. The UPS is used to control the factory's compressors. There are so many compressors around all the size of a car! I wonder why they need such a big compressor. At the control panel I saw BIG and THICK wires! Its the thickness of the rope used in "tarik tali" competitions. It is used to carry a whopping 1200 Amps of current! Those amps not only kill, it will fry the unlucky fellow in moments!

The compressors are located in an isolated room outside of the manufacturing plant. Its very noisy and hot inside the room with all that compressors heating up and the high level of noise they generate. Truly an uncomfortable place to work at. Lucky I was in the room for a short period of time. Once the UPS is wired, the compressor (the one controlled by the UPS) is powered up. The sound of the compressor powering up is melodious. Its like a Lamborghini engine being powered up but the noise is a lot louder and lasts longer. Very nice melody.

Today I saw two UNITEN students on the road! One in LDP near the big Western Digital Factory. I can't recall the guy's name but he's driving a black saga aeroback plate number WHP3090. He looks quite stressed maybe because the highway was jam-packed at that time. The other one on my way back home at Kewajipan intersection. I don't know this guy but I always see his car in UNITEN. He's driving a green satria plate number MAM 11. I know this car because of the plate number. Very unique.

The week's over! Time to rest. But I feel like going out tomorrow. Maybe to OneUtama or The Curve just to look around and buy some stuffs. Its been a while since the last time I went shopping.. Yes you read correctly. Shopping. Women are not the only ones holding many shopping bags in the Megamall you know!

Today's traffic is a lot better than yesterday. Arrived in Puchong at 8am, 15 minutes earlier than I usually do. Had breakfast at the same restaurant since I started the internship. I usually order teh tarik for my drink. So often that I don't have to tell the waiter what I want to drink anymore. As soon as I entered the restaurant, I heard the waiter yelled "teh tarik satu!" to the people in the kitchen. Nice!

Around 9.30am Mr. James gave my my first assignment of the day. He asked me to DRAW some sort of connector complete with measurements. I'm bad in drawing especially when it involves 3D. Tried my best to draw the connector and this is what I did:

I know its not very nice and accurate but its good enough. Did not expect this kind of assignment at all! But its great to have manage to draw it as close as possible with the real thing. All part of the learning process.

Learnt a very important lesson today. Its closely related to the title. Here's the story. We revisited this food manufacturing factory in Shah Alam (its the one that has a "clean room" that I mentioned on day 6) to install a counter. The problem is that one of the "clampers" (not sure the exact name) of the machine is not running concurrently with each other. The machine looks very close to this:

Basically the clampers were controlled by the three counters. Each counter controlling each clamper. Supposedly when the whole thing is turned on, Every counter starts counting. The clamper will open-close-open-close continuously and concurrently with each other as the counter counts and resets. But the right clamper open-close rate is slower than the other two. That's why we were called in. We installed two types of counter but it does not work. Tried every operation mode but none suit the situation. Tried a lot of other methods but did not work. The workers there even tried to help us by cleaning the inner mechanism of the clamper.The factory technician then came in to inspect and repair the mechanism that controls the movement of the clamper but to no avail.

At the brink of giving up, Mr. James asked me to remove the new counter and SWITCH the middle counter and the possibly faulty counter. After all that sweat re-wiring the two counters with the help of my collie its done. (Thanks man!) Then the machine is powered up. To our surprise, the three clampers were back in sync! I was speechless! We've been working for this problem for two days! Turns out the solution is VERY SIMPLE! Just SWITCH the two counters! If only I could come up with the idea a little sooner..

In engineering, the solution to a difficult problem may not be very difficult after all. The engineer just need to analyze the situation or problem from many different perspective and think outside the box. This is a critical skill that engineers MUST acquire and I am thankful that I got the opportunity to learn this very important lesson.

Yup..just another day in the office. Nothing much to report today. I was only revisiting yesterday's problems (counter, inverter stuff like that). Me and my collie went for a short visit in a screw and bolt (if I remember correctly) manufacturing factory in Puchong. Went back at 6.00pm and arrived home an hour later.

Today's traffic is unusually busier than the usual days. I don't know why. I came out only 10 minutes earlier than I usually do but the traffic is unlike any other days especially on the Federal Highway. Lucky me I'm not using that highway to get to Puchong. Its not raining though. Speaking about raining, I wonder why people say "asal hujan je KL mesti jam teruk" (KL roads are always jam-packed when it rains)? Theoretically when it rains people tend to stay indoors but the statement suggests otherwise. Trivial statement but its true! 

I heard from the radio that traffic summonses will INCREASE from RM300 to a whopping RM1000!!! Hope its not true..then what's the point of having 120km/h+ in the speedometer?? For decoration or just to show that your car can go that fast??

Enough with the rants. This is a diary not a heated debate! Anyway, during lunch there's this cat that slept beside me. The cat doesn't seem to be bothered with the noisy lunch hour atmosphere in the restaurant. It just kept sleeping. The cat is so cute! I want to hug and pamper it but people will think I'm crazy so I just took a photo of that cat.

All this while I don't feel very helpful to Mr. James because I don't know a lot of things about automation products. Most of the technical part is done by my collie and the technician. At 5pm just now a customer called in to ask about how to setup the inverter so that it operates like how he wants. After a few minutes analyzing the instruction manual, I found a solution. The best part is, it works! Explained how I did it to Mr. James and he seem to agree. Yay! I did something productive today! Now I can slowly eliminate that "unhelpful" feeling. Need to learn quick though, my collie will be leaving the company in less than a month time!

Monday blues..every worker has it. The weekend is never enough to relax the mind, body and soul after 5 days of hard labor. Is it just me or time seem to flow faster during the weekends? If only Mr. Einstein lived a little longer and invent the time machine..

Today is mainly about rotary encoder and counters. I was asked to test the newly purchased counter device and a rotary encoder. The rotary encoder is used as the input to the counter. Basically, a rotary encoder is a kind of motor that converts its relative angular position to digital signal that is then used to precisely measure length, angle and robotic components. In my case, the angular position is output-ed at the counter. Here's the setup to test both the counter and encoder:

First and foremost, read the manual. The reason why is that I need to know the circuit connections and how to setup the counter to meet the customer's specifications. What I meant by setup is the number of decimal value, enabling the memory function and some other parameters. One revolution of the encoder equals to 1000 units at the counter. Once that value is reached, the counter resets. One can easily understand the application of a rotary encoder and a counter by looking at the picture below: (taken from the manual)

Briefly, it is used to precisely cut a preset length value of paper/sheet/whatever you can think of. The rotation of the encoder that correlates to the length can be easily calculated by applying some formula (not shown here). The purpose of the counter is to set and display the length values.

After lunch, Mr. James brought me and my collie to a factory in Kapar, Klang to deliver some stuffs to the client. Then we went to a food manufacturing factory in Shah Alam to install a counter. To enter the manufacturing department, visitors (me) must wear a safety jacket, hair cover, face mask and a specialized plastic bag to cover the shoe. All provided by the factory. Then before entering the department, we have to go through a small chamber. Inside the chamber were air blower that blows off any dirt from us. Its like in the movies where there's a "clean room" where anyone who wants to enter must go through the cleaning chamber. Too bad  I have no pictures of myself wearing all those stuff. Somehow I feel like a doctor wearing that face mask and the safety jacket..

On the way to the factory we went through Section 7 of Shah Alam. Guess what I saw? Mansions! Oh my God those mansions are HUGE! Some were as big as a mini shopping mall! They must be worth tens of millions each! I wonder what these people do for a living! The mansions kept me drooling..well not physically but mentally of course..wouldn't want to smear Mr. James car with my drool..Should have taken a photo of those mansions. That is someone's dream that came true! Quite an inspirational view!

Inspirational indeed. The owners must have gone through some hard times before. Something like what I'm going through now. If they can make it why not me? THAT is still a long way to go though...but I'll get there..god willing..

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..