Jamon Being an Adult

[Joseph41]

Apartment looks pretty cool! Where's the balcony?

[K888]

Apartment looks pretty cool! Where's the balcony?

I reckon it'd be outside somewhere

[Joseph41]

I reckon it'd be outside somewhere

This was very humorous, K888.

[jamonwindeyer]

Apartment looks pretty cool! Where's the balcony?

Through the door in the centre of that photo #balconyupdates2018

Week 1, Day 3-4

A good couple of days!

- Did some configuring of some ethernet radios. Basically what we're doing is adding automation capabilities to big cranes that dump metal in a factory, and those cranes need to be able to rotate and move freely. No wires coming off them to our comms on the floor - So, we use radios. Noice. Ended up being a huge thing because I still don't have admin privileges on my laptop and this made it difficult to change the IP address so I could work with the radios in the first place - But fun.
- Did some work in AutoCad doing some electrical drawings. Now I've had experience with AutoCad, but very very little and a long time ago. My manager was great and taught me lots on how to do better drawings more quickly - Faaaar better with the software now than I was this morning. To any budding engineers out there, learn CAD - Super important and a skill I've neglected to this point 

Back home now for Australia Day long weekend! Catch y'all next week

[jamonwindeyer]

Week 2

The start of this week was absolutely rotten, as I got floored by what was either the worst stomach virus ever, or food poisoning. A bunch of my partner's family got sick at the same time and we ate together on Saturday, so I'm guessing the latter.

On Wednesday, I went with my supervisor to see a client who wanted some electrical design work done. Inspected their project, came up with some concepts, and I did a preliminary drawing for them in the afternoon. Was cool to work on something that actually ended up in front of a client

My last two days I focused on configuring some RFID tags. Essentially, we're working on a project that has a bunch of cranes moving along lines, and we want to track their position. To do this, we're attaching an RFID reader to each crane, then attaching RFID tags all along the line. The reader picks up the tags and knows whereabouts it is - Lovely.

Only, we have 140 tags per line. And six lines. Guess who's configuring all 840 tags? This guy.

I mean, someone has to do it and I'm literally not angsty about it at all, but it's very monotonous. Sit the tag on the reader, enter tis identifier, upload the config and label it with a permanent marker - About a 30 second process, a minute once you add my pedantic checks at regular intervals to make sure everything is working. Repeated eight hundred and forty times.

I did about five hundred today alone - Funsies

[brenden]

Week 2
 a minute once you add my pedantic checks at regular intervals to make sure everything is working.

LeBron

[jamonwindeyer]

Week 3

Me: Hey boss, did you want me to do any more work on that design for that client from last week?

Boss: Yes actually, could you do it for me?

Me: Yeah absolutely, what did you need me to do?

Boss: It. Can you do the whole design for me?

Me: ....

So yeah, was an interesting week! Have never designed anything even remotely to the scale of what this design was - Like, he essentially asked a six year old to paint the Mona Lisa. Whether it was to keep me from asking for more work for a while or to give me a chance to expose myself to new stuff in the quickest possible way, don't really mind, because it's really cool! Learning as I go and asking what are probably really obvious questions to anyone who has done it before, but learning loads!

So far I've sketched out some basic block diagrams and made a list of the cables that we'll need and exactly where they need to run between. This week will be spent figuring out exactly how to wire in each piece of equipment, figuring out how much power we'll need to run the thing, and figuring out what circuit breakers and other safety devices we'll need to keep everyone happy and safe. This last bit I've learnt literally nothing about at university (common theme) so will definitely be getting loads of help


Was meant to post this earlier but spent the entire weekend with my partner and family and didn't get the chance.

Currently driving back to Sydney every weekend - I sort of told myself I'd start staying weekends once I got into a rhythm, but honestly, I just don't see it happening. Going from seeing my partner every other day (well, almost every day for the last few months actually) to only on weekends is a serious adjustment, as is not being at the family home 5/7 nights. Don't know if I could do a fortnight

[jamonwindeyer]

Week 4

Kept pressing on with the aforementioned design all through the week! Essentially still figuring out what I'm doing as I'm doing it, but I'm learning a heap about stuff that I've just never touched before, which is fantastic.

Think what I've taken away from this week more than anything is the huge number of requirements for a design to be "up to standard." Further, just how much trouble those rules can cause. So for example, there is a rule in the Australian wiring guidelines that you need 600mm of clearance in all directions around a switchboard. This design we're doing is in a really confined space, and so my main issue isn't with figuring out what goes where - It's figuring out if we can even have a cabinet wide enough to fit the PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) and the modules we need to make the thing tick, and still keep clearance. The wider the panel the further out the door reaches from the wall, and so to make it wider you need to make it thinner, and... Yurk.

Anyway, I think we'll just squeeze it in. This is probably going to be a really boring journal for a few weeks because this design will take a while - But I'll try and pick cool little parts of it to share


In terms of home life, finally got on the NBN. Huzzah. Gotten into a nice routine of grocery shopping on Mondays, so far so good on sticking to my $50 budget without resorting to a diet of instant noodles! Went for a run, only a few kilometres (I'll say I stopped because family called, but I won't say I wasn't happy to be interrupted ), will try and go a few times this week!! I think I'm, 'settled,' so to speak

[jamonwindeyer]

Week 5

More designing this week! Feeling really confident with how everything is working and just slowly chugging along with things - I might try and post some images of the more generic drawings at some point

I think my big takeaway from this week was backing myself more. As I was working on the layout of the new panel for our design this week, it was pretty obvious that we weren't going to have the room for all our equipment, while still maintaining the clearances required by the Australian wiring rules. As I'm investigating, I say to myself:

We could stick two smaller panels together to increase the available area without making the door swing larger.

I shoot myself down, because if that was something we could do, surely someone would have come up with it. Lieu and behold, chatting about the design, my supervisor says, "Well, can we get two smaller panels and stick them together?"

Not the first time either, there's been other times on this placement when I've come up with something, called it wrong, then it ended up being right. Really need to trust myself more and just put these ideas out there in the future


Two 4-5km runs this week, my Mum and brother came and visited for a night from Sydney which was awesome! I mean, I'd seen them on the weekend, but nice to see them throughout the week like I used to. Apparently my new suburb reminds mum very much of Newtown. Homemade Spag Bowl for dinner was a highlight

[jamonwindeyer]

Week 6, Day 1

Bit of a rotten start to the week. Like, not actually - Good day at work, feeling good, etc. But:

1- Stuffed up my file names and ended up overwriting one of my drawings. Couple of hours work, goneskies. At least I've got somewhere to start in the morning.

2- NBN connection down. Went to Officeworks and swapped the modem because I thought based on troubleshooting that it was faulty, but new modem is the same issue. I'm thinking I know what happened. So last night when I got here and the internet was down, I tried adjusting the connection configuration to fix it. I reckon I've screwed that up, and NBN has locked my port.

Top it all off, my 4G Modem that I have as backup? Left that in Sydney. Chewing through my hotspot data atm

[jamonwindeyer]

Week 6, Day 2-5

Will start my recount of the rest of this week with my NBN fable. NBN appointment booked for Thursday, coming 8am-12pm. Take morning off work (thank goodness work is flexible). NBN technician arrives at 11:50am (come oooon), do some investigating, find out the reason that I've had no internet for the week is that the bloody technician who installed the new lift phone last Friday unplugged my bloody internet cable. So while I had a signal, it was from the phone in the lift. Thank goodness no one needed it - Maybe my modem would have rung? Ahaha

Still chugging along with the same design - Sent it to the client for first review on Friday afternoon so we'll wait and see what they think! My supervisor is impressed with my work, which is excellent. Still learning loads as I go, my supervisor is great for taking even a simple question and turning it into a little mini lesson on the topic. Takes the time to explain typical techniques for addressing Problem X, even if he knows that we need to do something a little different - Purely for my benefit. Really, really cool.

As an additional crazy coincidence, a graduate started work with us this week, and they were from UNSW! What's more, they were my lab demo in my very first ELEC subject (pretty sure, was definitely one of the first ones)! Craaaaaazy.

[jamonwindeyer]

Week 7

Not much to report this week to be honest! Chugged away at the design a little bit more - After a review with my supervisor he's set me the target to be finished by Friday next week (this week, as I'm writing). I think this will be tough, but manageable. We're pretty much down to checks at this point, and...

Breaking news - We're actually going to be using a formula at work. Shock. Awe. Horror. Legit the first time I've done a calculation in what is now an aggregate total of 5 months work experience.

But yeah, calculating whether our panel is physically able to dissipate enough heat to keep our electronic components operating at an acceptable temperature. Have done a layout to check that our PLC, terminals, relays and circuit breakers fit in our control panel (very tight squeeze), need to do the same for the distribution panel. As a side note, far out, the rules for panels that have 415V in them are pretty intense. Opening the door needs to cut the power, and even with that, nothing live can be visible or touchable by an operator. Covers on all screws, everything behind guards. Yikes.

Likely to be a busy but exciting week - Have enjoyed working on this project, and would happily work on it longer, but excited to move on to the next thing
Managed to get another two runs in this week, as well as some mini-circuit stuff at home when it was raining. Going to aim for three runs this week since I've got no family catch ups or anything to steal an afternoon away. Also getting really good on the grocery bill, this week was only $40!!

[jamonwindeyer]

Weeks 8-10

I've been slack lately! Thought I'd do a big update to celebrate the long weekend

The last three weeks have been intense. In the last update at the end of Week 7 the plan was to finish at the end of Week 8 - I actually got there! Pushed hard and got it to the stage where the client could come in and review it. It was an interesting experience working through the design, because I needed to articulate the key points of it to various people of various technical backgrounds. I think that I need to improve in how I adapt my language to discuss it with different people, to suit their level of knowledge. I'll keep getting better here, as I'm also helping my boss write a set of instructions for an operator to be able to use and maintain our design.

So that review happened in Week 9 (last week), and the client was happy with the direction we had taken and the choices we had made. A few edits, nothing major - This week was mostly spent tidying up the drawings. We did a review towards the end and figured out that we need to change how one of the cabinets is arranged. This sounds like a small change, but it means changes to every drawing to match new wire numbers and codes and stuff. This is what I've figured out really quick - Seemingly small changes can pack a lot of work behind them. On the plus side, this has got me asking way more questions and clarifying things more often, which was a goal of mine heading into the placement. Basically, if I don't ask and I push on with something that isn't quite there, I can literally waste a whole day of work. So I'm being very careful to clarify proactively rather than retroactively.

So, Week 11 will be polishing, Week 12 will be finalising and approving - Then hopefully done! That will mark the halfway point for my placement, and I'm keen to move on to the next thing. Crazy to think I've spent like 300 hours on this design - Literally mind bending.

[jamonwindeyer]

Week 11

DESIGN IS DONE!

Spent this week putting the final touches on the drawings and doing some accompanying documentation. Weeeeeew. Feeling so accomplished looking back at all the work I've put into this and really proud of the finished product!!

I've attached some little screen grabs of the drawings, to maybe put it into context. I promise I haven't been colouring in for three months there ended up being about 60 in total!

Really appropriate that this will wrap up at the halfway point of the placement, excited to move on to something new over the coming weeks

This first image shows the layout (to scale) of the main panel with a heap of circuit breakers and switches in it, as well as terminals for wires. The shaded sections are ducts for cables to run between everything, then out of the panel at the bottom.
 


This is the termination diagram for one of the terminal strips, showing a cable coming in and how the individual wires in that cable need to connect. Picture one of those at each end of like 100 cables - Eep.



And this last one is the schematic for electrical connections a few of the instruments in the plant

[owidjaja]

DESIGN IS DONE!

Spent this week putting the final touches on the drawings and doing some accompanying documentation. Weeeeeew. Feeling so accomplished looking back at all the work I've put into this and really proud of the finished product!!

Ooh all these diagrams look fancy and I don't even know what it is lol (I looked at one of these diagrams for a construction site and I was so lost what the diagram was trying to say lmao). What exactly are you using to design these documentations?