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I was offered a controls gig to design a very complicated machine that was to be used by consumers in shopping malls. Many moving parts. Many pinch zones, safet
by alar44 4y ago
I was offered a controls gig to design a very complicated machine that was to be used by consumers in shopping malls. Many moving parts. Many pinch zones, safety concerns etc. All in all probably 100 drives and maybe double as many sensors. They were hell bent on using an Arduino to "save money". I ran as fast as I could.
- iostream24 4y agoClearly that calls for a 6502. Maybe do it in discrete logic wirewrapped
- fest 4y agoI've heard a story where somebody tried to automate some woodworking equipment with Arduino, bare optical encoders and microswitches instead of more rugged sensors. Predictably, the machine was constantly broken (a loose solder joint here, a spurious reset when some other machine was turned on there). Luckily,it did not lead to serious accidents, but eventually all of that was scrapped after wasting a few months and a controls company replaced it with appropriate solution.
- alar44 4y agoYeah this is what I was trying to explain. PLCs don't exist just to be expensive. They wanted to make hundreds of these and I was to develop a prototype. They also wanted it to be self-servicable. I told them they'd need to employ a dozen guys just to calibrate and maintain them.