Forever knowledge. Learning may take forever.

[font=&quot]Too many of you are obsessed with the knowledge of how to use a tool. I know this almost sounds religious, but I do know that that there is knowledge that is created by Microsoft, Rockwell, Siemens, Koyo, Omron, Schneider and Mitsubishi this knowledge is temporary and will fade away. This is unsettling because one can learn this knowledge even if it is transitory. There is knowledge of math, logic and physics that will we always be true but this is harder to learn..

Once you understand even part of the forever knowledge the rest becomes easier.

I know this forum is about PLCs but I really do see them as just a tool. You all should know that I sell motion controller but they are just a tool. I am not a hypocrite. Things are just tools. All tools are just a passing fad. Physics, math and logic are forever.

What tools will you be using 20 years from now? Will the questions posted on the PLC forum change? Will they still be about traffic lights and one button toggles? Will they still be about calculating speed using the latest high speed counter card? Are these the forever questions? I would hope the level of question would be a little higher.








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Will there still be PLCs ?

Peter:

You all should know that I sell motion controller

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I will ove to hear your comments about this software

Automation 3200

http://www.aerotech.com/A3200/a3200ov.html


A customer of mine wants to use is for a custom 5 Axis Robot Arm.

Peter Nachtwey said:

[font=&quot]What tools will you be using 20 years from now? [/font]

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A very comfortable lounge chair and a cooler I hope.

All tools are just a passing fad. Physics, math and logic are forever.

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Well said!!!

I agree, Peter. I think the fundamental problem is that too many don't seem to understand the basic problem solving methodology. My impression is that too many think like school kids: there is "a" right answer, and that answer is somewhere on the internet, and they just have to find it. As a result they don't spend enough time looking at the fundamentals of a given problem, and they don't analyze the factors that will lead them to a solution. Information gets lost in a flood of data!

Engineering isn't a body of knowledge. It is a problem solving discipline.

Tom Jenkins said:

Engineering isn't a body of knowledge. It is a problem solving discipline.

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Very well said, couldn't have put it any better myself.

I agree with you Peter, Once you understand the principles it is easy to apply them to various "tools".

e.g. a simple tool like a hammer, that many people need to be told not to hold the handle close to the head, An understanding of the physics involved would lead to you holding the hammer the correct way and knowing why as opposed to just doing it the way you were told without knowing the reason.

An advantage of knowing why is that you can then decide when the rule needs to be modified for exceptional cases.

I have often met people who have blindly followed whatever instructions they were given and were incapable of adapting that knowledge when circumstances changed.

It's a while since I was in school too, have they stopped letting the students do their own experiments and are they now all on Powerpoint?

I remember myself and a few friends even doing electrolysis after school with an old car battery and the carbon rods taken from a couple of used D cells. I suppose they just watch a Flash video now.

Math skills seem to be gone too, not many people working in shops can figure out the correct change unless the till shows them.

YES Its time that people went back to the basics again! and picked up the vital "forever" knowledge that they skipped.

and if your only tool is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail...

Sometimes I long for the time when my only tool was a hammer, at least when you got frustrated you could hit something with it or even throw it and it would still work for you afterwards, try doing that with a laptop!

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Are these the forever questions?

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In the old days one would have a supplyer who's crew where somewhat knowledgable of the product they would sell.

They had a line card that fitted into one 8.5x11 sheet of paper.

Now, they don't even try to learn there product list, not to mention what them products are used for, ONLY there names is still to long a list to memorize.

When and if they had a technically oriented person they often would use that person to also do after-sale support.

We could call and ask for such trivial question has to how to configure an HSC module. If they where real good they could even have notes on it.

Now, all is changed. We don't repair anymore we replace. When was the last time your car mechanics has repaired something?

The net has done fantastic things for a very few groupd of individual. When my wife wants to find something she asks me for it takes me 1/10th of the time it takes her. I'm just more use to it than her. On the PLC stuff, I often ask some of the guys here for the good technical english term for what I'm searching. God! You should have seen what I got when looking for a Black Body. Lots a heat related things but not exactly what I wanted

PLCs are no different. We are going to see a Walmartisation of the PLC industrie.

Its incredible now how many brands we can purchase. Basic knowledge will become even more a pivot point to differentiate the ones who can and the one who try.

Questions will move from "How to blablabla" to "How do you say "Rising edge" in Korean.

Some others will have gaine some expertise for they have had the good sense of sometime luxury of selecting a path crossing the days technological trend.

I admire all that is done by people whos knowledge would dictate that they absolutely cannot accomplish such tasks. They raise to the challenge. They use whatever form of help they can get.

Some are students, some are EE but never forget that "None of us is as dumb as all of us".
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When you're on an offshore oil rig with a bad I/O module and your mud processors are in hand mode, and if one of them goes into overcurrent you could be losing $150,000 per day; then no one cares who on the rig knows anything about logic, science or math, they want the guy who has the right cable and knows how to open the right software and rewire the right terminal block.

Being an engineer makes it easier for me to learn specific knowledge because I understand the theory behind the applications. I can design better and troubleshoot more efficiently. But engineering is APPLIED science, and without the application, you aren't getting anything done. Application-specific knowledge will always be valuable on the "production floor". Also, I can't be everywhere at once, hehe

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Peter Nachtwey said:

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What tools will you be using 20 years from now?
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I will probably still be working on AB SLC 500s because my company will not be able to justify the expense of going to the latest technology. It's been working that way for XX years now, just make it run.

elevmike said:

It's amazing how much basic knowledge doesn’t get through. This morning I was standing in a parking lot with a level and protractor when a suit from the GC walked up to me an asked me what I was doing. I told him I was getting the height of the building for ordering a crane. "How do you intend to do that??"

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Perhaps it wasnt aimed at how to get the height of the building, but just maybe he wondered how to order a crane