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I've operated in boiler room offices at large plants for almost 40 years, the mimic panel is a very valuable tool. With miles of piping carrying water and steam

I've operated in boiler room offices at large plants for almost 40 years, the mimic panel is a very valuable tool. With miles of piping carrying water and steam for various reasons, the panels help keep it all straight in your mind. These panels are in hospitals, chemical plants, data centers, Navy ships and subs and many other places similar to where I work. I can't imagine what it feels like to work in a nuke facility. I do work with some men who worked on subs, their training was astounding.

sizzle 4y ago
Working with some SCADA control unit in a factory right now. It’s all digital and keeps changing configuration. Wish there were physical buttons.
i_am_proteus 4y ago
After working with mimic panels for years on steam plants, I got exposed to an older, pre-mimic-panel design. I appreciated the mimic panel's beauty for the first time on that day.
zhrvoj 4y ago
I was maintaining instrumentation is similar control rooms. The man behind panel. Petrochemical industry, recorders, indicators, alarms, tranducers, pneum. controllers. Mix of pneumatic and electronic technology (thermionic valves mostly). US technology from 50's/60's and it looked the same like this. Remember Taylor 700T chopper stabilized thermocouple transducer, Honeywell, Fisher instrumentation...
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Did you ever work with the Honeywell TDC-3000 ?
  - zhrvoj 4y ago
    No. Honeywell TDC's were in other plants - polyethylene, polystyrene. This was old olefin plant. Not any kind of control logic, no computers, no scada. Just control loops for flow, presssure, temperature on the field - with control room indications, and/or PI/PID controllers in the control room. So we could adjust PID loops from control rooms. And most important - there was man in the middle, and his logic! Later I lead maintenance on steam generation plant, and there we also didn't have any visualization of process, just bunch of logic cards in two racks, cards full of CMOS 4000 IC! I loved it. We searched for logic faults looking at the bad xeroxed paper logic circuit schematics!! Checking inputs from field, and deducing why output is not ok, and some valve not actuating. Changing IC's, or repairing cold junctions. People knowing chemical proccess were crucial!
  - zhrvoj 4y ago
    Can you imagine perfectly stable operational amplifier made with thermionic valves (tubes), ECC81, ECC82, ECC83. Amplifying DC millivolts to stable volts and converting them to pressure 3 - 15 psi, because intrinsic safety circuits were not possible at that time. 4-20mA came later.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
The recreation of the control room in HBO's Chernobyl drama was impressive. Presumably it was fairly accurate/authentic - but also it's simplicity and explicit use during shots in the drama as a filmic device to explain the quite technically complex plot was amazing. From the dials, meters and warning lights made it all come alive.
- rsynnott 4y ago
  There are a few such plants still in operation, and others recently decommissioned. It wouldn’t have been hard to make a replica.
emptybits 4y ago
I didn't know what a "mimic panel" was. Twenty minutes later, I just emerged from a "mimic panel" image search rabbit warren. Satisfying. Thank you!

sizzle 4y ago

Working with some SCADA control unit in a factory right now. It’s all digital and keeps changing configuration. Wish there were physical buttons.

i_am_proteus 4y ago

After working with mimic panels for years on steam plants, I got exposed to an older, pre-mimic-panel design. I appreciated the mimic panel's beauty for the first time on that day.

zhrvoj 4y ago

I was maintaining instrumentation is similar control rooms. The man behind panel. Petrochemical industry, recorders, indicators, alarms, tranducers, pneum. controllers. Mix of pneumatic and electronic technology (thermionic valves mostly). US technology from 50's/60's and it looked the same like this. Remember Taylor 700T chopper stabilized thermocouple transducer, Honeywell, Fisher instrumentation...

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Did you ever work with the Honeywell TDC-3000 ?
- zhrvoj 4y ago
  No. Honeywell TDC's were in other plants - polyethylene, polystyrene. This was old olefin plant. Not any kind of control logic, no computers, no scada. Just control loops for flow, presssure, temperature on the field - with control room indications, and/or PI/PID controllers in the control room. So we could adjust PID loops from control rooms. And most important - there was man in the middle, and his logic! Later I lead maintenance on steam generation plant, and there we also didn't have any visualization of process, just bunch of logic cards in two racks, cards full of CMOS 4000 IC! I loved it. We searched for logic faults looking at the bad xeroxed paper logic circuit schematics!! Checking inputs from field, and deducing why output is not ok, and some valve not actuating. Changing IC's, or repairing cold junctions. People knowing chemical proccess were crucial!
- zhrvoj 4y ago
  Can you imagine perfectly stable operational amplifier made with thermionic valves (tubes), ECC81, ECC82, ECC83. Amplifying DC millivolts to stable volts and converting them to pressure 3 - 15 psi, because intrinsic safety circuits were not possible at that time. 4-20mA came later.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

The recreation of the control room in HBO's Chernobyl drama was impressive. Presumably it was fairly accurate/authentic - but also it's simplicity and explicit use during shots in the drama as a filmic device to explain the quite technically complex plot was amazing. From the dials, meters and warning lights made it all come alive.

rsynnott 4y ago
There are a few such plants still in operation, and others recently decommissioned. It wouldn’t have been hard to make a replica.

emptybits 4y ago

I didn't know what a "mimic panel" was. Twenty minutes later, I just emerged from a "mimic panel" image search rabbit warren. Satisfying. Thank you!