One of the things we do

David G · Apr 7, 2018

One of the things we do is control panel design, this is one of about 50 panels that I designed that will be going all over the world to one of our customers. Each site will take 3-5 of these panels, and there are 11 sites that we are modernizing. I stopped in at the shop that is building these for us while in Phoenix. This customer cleans the tool parts that make computer chips, so we are doing 3 phases on this project, the first is to get all their equipment hooked to a central system so we can view the process, the second will be to track their customers parts through the cleaning process so we can correlate the data to the part, the third is to download settings to the equipment so that their customers can specify how the process is run.

This is a manual process right now with clipboards.

Sorry, picture is on side.

CWL · Apr 7, 2018

Nice clean panel. I like a well labeled system. It makes trouble shooting so much easier. Is the DIN rail on the bottom for future expansion?

David G · Apr 7, 2018

I have been in the business of working for companies that make computer chips for more than 25 years.

Making a chip is a combination of the old darkroom enlargers and painting a car. You take a flat piece of silicon, which is pure glass, put photo resist chemical on, shoot light through a negative. The reaction to the light makes the chemical react, you wash that off leaving a mask on the silicon, like masking a car. You then spray on a layer of molecules, like painting a car. This process is repeated until you have the appropriate layers of molecules on to make a computer chip. There can be several hundred chips on one wafer, the chips are then tested, and cut off to make individuals. The chips are graded, with the best ones being the faster chips, a lot like sorting gravel by size.

The new wafers are 18 inches in diameter and built with an accuracy of 15 nano meters, when I started they were 4 inches in diameter and 10 micro meters.

David G · Apr 7, 2018

Yes, this is the "upgraded" panel that came from what I did not like about the first run. The original was a 30x30, with no spare room, this is a 36x36 with a spare DIN rail. The customer originally wanted them for a specific purpose that did not require any expansion, but are now seeing the potential, so we upsized. A larger cabinet is also much easier to work in. I hate OEM cabinets that are stuffed full, just too hard to work in them.

Fred Werring · Apr 7, 2018

Company I work for used to spec a percentage of open space in the panels/wireways/conduit on the machines we bought, for future expansion, or just 'whoops, we didn't think of that, need to add it'

Then for a while they got away from it...and we were adding panels/wireways, etc. It was ugly. And a pain to work on.

Now I don't know if my company is back to speccing it, or if the builders are doing it on their own, but the last few years has seen machines come in with at least some room...makes my job a lot easier.

Fred

tomturkey · Apr 7, 2018

I was around a project at a waste water treatment facility. They were upgrading most all of their control features to pure logic controllers. My only involvement was documenting that the technicians and electricians were on the site working on the project. So the "chips" you are talking about, are they programed for the control feature? This kind of thing is way above my intellect, but a little more knowledge and understanding won't hurt me. lol gobble

stevob671 · Apr 7, 2018

Had to look close... we do that also where I work. I assume the cable in the lower left of the picture is to an HMI on the door?
We do little 12x18's up to 60x72 3 door cabinets with most being 24 x 24 to 36 x 48. Some are panels that the customer puts into machines, some are full enclosures ready for power feed. Got this job after working for disk drive manufacturer for 40 years when they adjusted the workforce eliminating whole departments.

Dale39 · Apr 9, 2018

Very interesting....we're in the same field, pun intended. This is a picture of a control panel we recently did which was shipped to a plant in Romania. First time for us using Siemens controls, by customer request.

Andy Martin · Apr 9, 2018

HA HA! I wouldn't have noticed the picture was rotated. We usually had vertical raceways laid out just like the picture. Looks like a bulletin board on the right instead of a desk.

RjMaan · Apr 9, 2018

Wow, man great control panel design. I am impressed with it.

One of the things we do

David G

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CWL

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David G

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David G

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Fred Werring

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tomturkey

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stevob671

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Dale39

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Andy Martin

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RjMaan

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