OT: Consultants and Electrical Drawings

BobB said:

Saffa - same s**t another day. Insultants I have called them since 1960 when I was an apprentice.

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Insultants... I like it.

I_Automation said:

Along with that is naming the panels you make.

When building a new panel for a line or machine the name of the line or machine will stay what it was, but you can give the control panel its own name and model #.

One example - I built a panel for an old TMP press and it is the "Ivanova 726" and the drawings show "Ivanova 726 Control For TMP Press (serial #)"

Big sign on the front, graphics in the HMI, and a "Custom Built for xxx By me" sign on the side of the panel.

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Naming the panels really can make all the difference.

Years ago, a company I worked for built an identical pair of machines. Their development took way more time and $$ than planned. Someone named them Mary-Kate and Ashley. The spoiled twins.

We had another machine that was being rebuilt; it was sitting on a workbench and part of it hung out over the floor. A coworker reached down under the bench and banged his head on the overhang on the way back up. "Damn it... Earl!" he yelled. I asked him "why Earl?" He said the thing needed a name so he could get mad at it. Shortly thereafter, we built an additional part of the machine, and it was named "Earl Jr."

More recently, I designed the lighting controls for an attraction on a cruise ship. There were fore and aft lighting control panels. My techs decided to name them "Carlos" and "Cynthia" while commissioning them in the shop. Guess what got put on the cabinet labels and drawings that were sent to the client as as-builts?


-rpoet

We used to call all our panels "George". We even created a decal with Kilroy peeking over the company logo. Calls from the field would often start out with "George is sick" or "I think we killed George". I'd even get calls from prospective customers saying "I want a George like theirs."

I started doing it in the '80s. Back then phrases like "The CPU" or "The master controller" would make wastewater operator's eyes roll back in their head and their tongues hang out. On the other hand, saying "George will open the valve" or "George will start the next blower" made all kinds of training issues disappear.

Tom Jenkins said:

We used to call all our panels "George". We even created a decal with Kilroy peeking over the company logo. Calls from the field would often start out with "George is sick" or "I think we killed George". I'd even get calls from prospective customers saying "I want a George like theirs."

I started doing it in the '80s. Back then phrases like "The CPU" or "The master controller" would make wastewater operator's eyes roll back in their head and their tongues hang out. On the other hand, saying "George will open the valve" or "George will start the next blower" made all kinds of training issues disappear.

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OOps....Cant use "Master" any more, must now be "Primary". "Master" is now considered racially biased...
Realtors in Texas and a few other states have been notified... It is Primary Bedroom and Primary Bathroom, Not Master.

NetNathan said:

OOps....Cant use "Master" any more, must now be "Primary". "Master" is now considered racially biased...
Realtors in Texas and a few other states have been notified... It is Primary Bedroom and Primary Bathroom, Not Master.

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I have avoided the Sl*** label for years, but just helped commission a brand new processing line from England that has 2 PLC's labelled everywhere as Master PLC & S**** PLC.

NetNathan said:

OOps....Cant use "Master" any more, must now be "Primary". "Master" is now considered racially biased...

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Good thing I've been using drooping in drive systems instead of that term.

Yes...going to screw up Master/Slave references for a lot of things, like Modbus, and a lot of other communication protocol references.

NetNathan said:

Yes...going to screw up Master/Slave references for a lot of things, like Modbus, and a lot of other communication protocol references.

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Then someone is going to complain that the "P" in PLC stands for them being a "pee-on" and try to get that banned.

NetNathan said:

OOps....Cant use "Master" any more, must now be "Primary". "Master" is now considered racially biased...
Realtors in Texas and a few other states have been notified... It is Primary Bedroom and Primary Bathroom, Not Master.

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As daddy used to say, "$%#W%W#$% them if they can't take a joke."

Tom Jenkins said:

I don't know about Australia, but in the US those drawings would be considered work product of work for hire. Therefore they are client property and they can do what they choose with them.

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I don't think you can make a blanket statement like that. Intellectual property law is a vast swamp.


For example if you build a brand new machine for someone unless you explicit release copyright to them on that design you own it. They just bought the physical machine from you. Even that is a rule of thumb and there are plenty of exceptions.

Good God, don't even get my started On the Master/Slave ********.

I read an article other other day saying that we need to call it Client/Server..... That's not the same thing you idiots it's a completely different model.


My last company had to be hired in to one of our main customers to change all the "ID10T" Alarms to "Invalid Procedure" alarms because people got offended LOL. No one has a sense of humor anymore. Everyone is a victim. It's a competition now on who can be the biggest victim.

theColonel26 said:

I read an article other other day saying that we need to call it Client/Server..... That's not the same thing you idiots it's a completely different model.

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Producer/Consumer. Scanner/Adapter. Controller/Device. The language is rich and possibilities are endless.

A company known for a huge line of electrical connectors had dropped 'male' and 'female' long time ago. It is 'plug' and 'receptacle'. Or 'backplane' and 'daughtercard'. Or... like I said, the language is rich.

LadderLogic said:

Or 'backplane' and 'daughtercard'.

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Now you're getting ***ist and are going to be attacked from that front.

Remember the US Army had a "Mother Bomb" that opened mid air and dispersed many 'Children" over a large area and they got attacked for that.

No matter what existing words are chosen someone is going to have a problem, especially if their precious little snowflake comes across the term in literature, on TV or in a schoolbook.

The only recourse is to create new words that don't exist in any language and hope they aren't sounding or spelled similar to any other words. Good Luck!

I find it strange no one has yet looked closely to words "servomotor" and "servodrive" just to remember what 'servus' meant in Latin. Maybe that is because they no longer teach Latin even in medical and law schools.

I_Automation said:

precious little snowflake

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Have to laugh at how this term is often used, considering how it was popularized.