Ever had a sleepless night ? over those damned PLC's

There I was the other night, sat at home after work. Showered, dressed in comfortable T shirt and shorts, feet up on the couch, Gin and tonic in hand watching TV with my wife.
I had just done a rush PLC job and been solid programming for 4 days at the machine side. And the machine was working sweet as a nut and in production.
Life was absolurely great.

During the advertisements on TV, my mind wandered back to the machine and the lovely tight code I had written. All the 'what ifs' I had put in the program, all the belt and braces extra safety features I had incorporated; then SHIIIIIIT,
I suddenly realised I had made a potentially fatal error.
I wont go into the details but I suddenly knew that if a prox failed or the wires to it broke at one part of the cycle (only one small part of the cycle I might add) then the machine would think it had finished and it would open the doors with everything still going on inside.
I had programmed a 'lock-out' sequence for the rest of the cycle if this prox failed, but for some reason forgotten it at this part.

The factory was closed while morning so I was ok while tomorrow morning, I was supposed to be elsewhere first thing but I knew I had to get there at the crack of dawn and sort it out.

All night in bed, I wrote the code in my head. I didnt sleep a wink - not a wink.
The factory didnt open while 7:00 am but I knew the boiler man came in at 6 to stoke the boilers.
I met him at the gate at 5:55 am - ran in, altered the program, fault tested it and let out a great sigh of relief.
I was away before any worker turned up and nobody was any the wiser.
I did the rest of the days work with pricking tired eyes and aching limbs.

Who said plc programming is a great job, I think it takes 10 years off your life span.

Please dont tell me I am the only one that has lost sleep worrying over a program!

your not even the only one this year

I don't trust my memory. When these happen - most of the time just as I'm about to drop off to sleep - I have to write it down and all my thoughts on the problem.

Sometimes it's the solution to a problem I had been puzzling over all day. At times I even outline for myself the parameters of the problem before going to be in hopes that the solution might pop up. And it does often enough to make this not an exercise in futility.

If I think of it while my home computer is still on I'll email myself at work with my thoughts.

Kudos, Goody , for doing the right thing!

I spent several years working in television broadcasting. I worked with signal quality and control. I spent all my time in front of oscilloscopes watching, evaluating and correcting signal quality.

It took about 2 years to get the damned oscilloscope traces out of my eyelids when I was trying to sleep.

These days it's not a video issue... now a days it's dreaming about some apparently damned important "continuous operation loop" that doesn't seem to have a reasonable "Entry-Point".

In general, I don't dream in pictures anymore... haven't for years. All of my dreams, when I recall them, are "bit-chasing".

That makes for one lousy night's sleep! On those occasions, I'm beat-up and tired before I even begin the next day's work.

BTW, I've tried that idea of writing down my thoughts when I get an "ah-ha!" and wake-up in the middle of a particular dream... weird $hit!

My brain hurts

You are GOOD!

I used to keep a notepad and flashlight on my night stand. I'd program my brain to ponder a problem in my sleep. Got a good nites' sleep and often had the answer written out the next morning.

Why not use that part of your brain - it don't hurt.

Rod (The CNC dude)

PS: I'm really good at math probs in my sleep - I visualize the equation and don't have the dang phone ringing

As most of us been there done that, the worst I ever got into was in 92. I was working at a pipe coating plant in Saudi Arabia. Got to worl one morning and was told that the modicon (a wonderful piece of S**T) was playing big dumb and stupid. well went to the plant it was in (a eaternal coating plant that was on a 2 year job coating 60 inch dia. 40 foot long,1.5 inch wall pipe) well it was dead and i do mean dead so went to wearhouse and got spare. put it in and low and behold it was too. It had been sent off before I got there and reparied so they said. All I had in the wear house was AB 5/02's. The modicon had 497 inputs and 431 outputs. Well there were parts that we didn;t need for the job we were doing. So went to it. 27 hours later was going nuts (the company didn;t pay the germans to translate the prints to english. so had to hang it up for a while to get some rest and didn't get nuch for dreaming of what I was missing or dreaming of a 40,000 lbs. pipe rolling out killing everybody around. Because I had to leave some of the code out because the AB would do all that the modicon could. well got it and then baby sat the plant for the next 4 days and nites before I was sure I had all covered.
regards,
Tom

When I first got into drives and controls my wife really wondered what was going on at work when one night in bed I apparently sat bolt upright and shouted "THE SUICIDES ARE LIFTED". I'd been troubleshooting a permissive problem on the job and on old GE drives they called the crowbar or shutdown circuits suicides, as in the drive suicided.

It seems I always work in my sleep and I too keep a pad and flashlight handy although sometimes in the morning the solution doesn't seem as clear as it did in the dream.

Jim

I used to keep a notepad and flashlight on my night stand. I'd program my brain to ponder a problem in my sleep. Got a good nites' sleep and often had the answer written out the next morning.

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Very true. I have been doing this for years. If you do not write it down you cannot get back to sleep and if it keeps you awake all night you forget by the morning and are rats**t the next day.

Worst I had was a power station. When commissioning the automatics I slept there for 2 nights. SLEPT!!! Yeh right. Took a week to get over it. Still had the notepad and pen by the sleeping bag on the floor though.

I even keep the notepad there when designing a difficult or complex job. My wife thinks it is a huge joke when she wakes up in the middle of the night and I am busy writing things down. Amazing how many solutions are found when you are asleep.

THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS, ONLY SOLUTIONS!!!

Amazing how many solutions are found when you are asleep.

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Yeah, the brain is even weirder than most PLCs.

I've been doing the same for the last 15 years, since I started noting that I could no longer remember my wonderful solution when I woke up again, if I didn't write it down. Mind you, depending on how awake I was when I wrote it down, I occasionally have trouble understanding what I was wanting to say!

I was once sat in a hotel bar in italy talking to some guys who where installing a printing plant. About 11.00 pm a chap waved as he left the hotel. I asked the guys at the bar who he was and they said "he's the PLC programmer off to the factory"!

I have a 30 minute commute home in the evenings. The solutions to so many problems presented themselves to me on the way home I bought a small digital recorder to dictate my thoughts. I found I would often forget the answer by morning if I didn't record it somehow. Driving is good thinking time for me, but I have to rememeber to check the road and mirrors every 15 minutes or so.

Regards,

Chris