My first week as an Electrical Engineer Intern!
May 20, 2014 10:49 am Leave your thoughts
Hi everyone, my name is Kevin and I am currently working as an Electrical Engineer Intern at Canfor's sawmill in Mackenzie. I spent the first week working with the Electrical Technicians learning and assisting with troubleshooting PLCs out here in the field. From working with the technicians, I have come to learn the importance of communication and teamwork between the engineers and the technicians. A lot of engineers are not fully aware of the situations out in the field, because it might not be part of the job description. Many difficulties and challenges do arise in the field which require changes to be made from the engineer's original design. It is important for the engineers to understand that when problems occur in the field, adjustments and changes may need to be made. However, many engineers fail to understand this and tend to not be flexible in making these changes for the technicians. This usually causes the operation to be delayed and may even cause the deadline of the project to be further pushed back. It is very important for engineers and the technicians to communicate effectively in order to improve the productivity and efficiency of the work being done.
Here are a few photos of my week:
5km bike ride home after work
5km bike ride on the way to work
ControlLogix5000 by Rockwell Automation.
PLC 5 (Programmable Logic Controller) from Rockwell Automation. These PLCs are currently being replaced by the logix 5000s. Even though the PLC 5s are the older version, it still has its benefits. For example, it is much easier to troubleshoot and to debug your code when programming. The RS logix 5 software tends to check over and over again to make sure that there aren't any faults in your logic before going online unlike RS logix 5000 software. This is good thing because even a small mistake can cause the entire mill to shutdown.
Doing some wiring on the PLC 5 (Programmable Logic Controller)