A quick snap of the Sinclair family  to wish Happy New Year to all our friends and customers.  I have been taking advantage of the holidays by catching up on paperwork as well as making a start on an interesting web based version of software that I wrote 20 years ago in Visual Basic.

The New Year looks unusually busy with two machine projects.  One is for a product elevator for supplying a filler.  The other is for a remote Biogas installation,  which combines automation and control with web-based interface and record-keeping.

If you aren't aware of the RaspberryPi, check it out, I think it looks like a promising hardware platform.

Peanuts !!! just completed the nut filler / depositor.  tested it with Peanuts :-) been singing the 'peanut vendor' all day.

Just completed a control system for filling pistachios and other nuts.  It uses the new Siemens S7-1200 to control pneumatics.  This is the first time I've actually allowed air in a control cabinet, but I'm assured that all exhaust will happen outside the cabinet.  The space to the right is for the pneumatics panel.

The stainless steel enclosure is custom made by Bearsheet metal.

I have a new control system being commissioned this week which controls and monitors a reed bed.  The external monitoring system uses GSM via Plant SMS.

The last two systems were designed exclusively under Linux as I now use inkscape for the drawings and Open Office for spreadsheet and documentation.

One of the reasons I enjoy service calls is that it gives me an opportunity to see what other manufacturers are doing.

This call out revealed a non working conveyor system with a ProFace screen on the front of the cabinet.  I spotted what I thought was a Twido PLC but turned out to be a Schneider OTB remote IO unit, badged as ProFace.

Now I know Schneider bought ProFace because of the large Italian confectionery job I did two years ago,  so I suppose things are converging.   I have no software to access the screen ( and controller) so I called ProFace technical to see what is available.  I found them a very friendly bunch, I shall pop down to see them this week, with the unit, to see if we can access the program within. - Update they couldn't

The major headache is all too common, although the equipment is almost new, there are no drawings, no program backups - nothing.  Why do companies not insist on full documentation?  The ideal time to do this would be before signing off the final payment, not when problems arise.

I have just spent all day trying to repair a windows installation that 'accidentally' connected to the internet, poor thing, it had no protection.  I shall say this only once - Windows is not suitable, appropriate and probably isn't licensed for industrial systems.  Do not use windows in a mission critical process. I have never seen a successful implementation of windows in an industrial setting.  By the way, even though we had experts from two continents giving their advice, we still couldn't get it to work, I'm going back tomorrow, with a new PC and new install to try again.