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If there is any PLC programmer or Twincat3 user out there. I would like to write my master thesis on Twincat3 in a company. Basically, They have different kinds of the Test bench, and they want someone to develop drivers for them. I have no experience with PLC or C++ or IEC61131 languages. Is it possible to learn any of these in 3 months, and then start writing the thesis? I have three months of Internship time before starting. I am having a bit of doubt. Even though it is daunting as an Electrical engineering student, I have no other options.
I thank you in Advance.
Also, The test benches are mainly Powerelectronics or Electrical machine test bench. I believe I need to automate the test processes in twincat3.
Best Regards
Good choice with TwinCAT 3. TwinCAT 3 is very capable, and quite easy to learn (of course dependent on your background, but generally a good platform to work on).
All I can support you with is a link to a TwinCAT 3 tutorial that I've created that is free of charge (available on YouTube):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLimaF0nZKYHz3I3kFP4myaAYjmYk1SowO
There are also some other resources available both on YouTube and on the website. I've created a set of links here to help you find all the resources you might need.
To answer your question I would say it depends. Three months is not much time, especially considering you probably have a lot of other things that need to go in there (doing studies, writing the thesis, implementation, conclusions etc). It depends on the complexity of your project (it's not very specific what "writing drivers for them" means). If it's a simple project (including a very basic set of I/Os) it might be do-able. If it's anything more complex (like needing to add a front-end, doing motion control and maybe even safety) then it's most likely going to be hard to finish it in three months.
But again, I think more details on what you want to achieve is necessary.
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I just graduated and started my career as a junior software engineer. The one thing I am struggling with right now is not knowing when to stop doing something from scratch.
Last week I was told to simulate a warehouse environment and tell my boss what sorts of layout should be optimal. I spent days trying to build that in Simpy, Netlogo, Google OR tools. Even though I was aware there's a software tool called AnyLogic for doing all this for you, I just didn't use it.
After spending almost two weeks with partial development my boss wasn't satisfied with my work. And now I'm watching AnyLogic tutorials. I am not sure whether I should keep working on improving my partial work or switch to AnyLogic and save time.
I would highly appreciate if you give me some suggestions to know when to go for the built in stuff and when not to. I know it sounds very simple but it's actually not. Requirement analysis of a project is very tough.
Thank you. :D
If future flexibility (upgrading, knowing how it works, etc.) of doing it from scratch benefits you more than using a prebuilt system saves you time, do it from scratch. Otherwise it's not worth it. Time is money, and you can't get time back.
As long as you understand what exactly it is that you are doing with a prebuilt system then there is no issue in using it. When I code, am I doing something wrong by using VSCode instead of writing my own text editor? No, I know what a text editor does and how it does it.
When I use VSCode, am I doing something wrong by running it in Microsoft Windows or Linux, and not custom developing my own operating system? No, because I know what an operating system does.
The flexibility of writing my own software to do these tasks does not outweigh the time saved by using a prebuilt solution and therefore I will end up being more productive, and probably make more money in the end, by using them.
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I'm a 2nd-year student doing my bachelor's degree in Computer Applications. I'm really interested in becoming a Game Programmer and my dream is to work at Rockstar Games😅(it sounds a bit crazy). I'm really worried and I don't know how to program or write code. I'm an absolute beginner. Do you have any tips or advice on how to get there and fulfill my dream? Thanks😀.
I work as a gameplay programmer in Canada so here's a few thing I can tell you.
Best place to start is doing the tutorials on the Unity website. Make a few that interests you and see how you like that. Unity is used in a lot of studios and it's very easy to find a ton of resources online for it. Once your more comfortable with it i'd experiment with unreal also to get an idea for more than 1 engine. While doing all that the idea is for you to build a portfolio of games/projects you can show an employer. Its ez to make ios/android builds to have portable visuals. Game jams are a great place to hone in some skills. Most game jam even lets you join in alone so teams missing people can add you in(programmers are usualy whats missing the most).
For the game industry more or less any programming degree can do but every studio will make you pass a programming test. Knowledge of the engine they use be it Unity/Unreal will be very important. For bigger studios that use their own they look for good c++/c# knowledge an often more experience. At the momment the industry is in dire need of people so its def a good time to join.
If rockstar is your ultimate goal you can certainly try and apply there right away (there's no harm), but its often more difficult to get in via larger studios when you don't know anyone there (also knowing someone on the inside is a major plus anywhere). But even if you don't know anyone, smaller studios have a lot of opennings at the momment and will often give you a a chance. 3 to 5 years experience in is when most opportunities might open up. But again depending on the labour market place may be more desperate.
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I have recently inherited a PLC project. We are using Automation Direct PLCs and using the C-more software for writing ladder logic.
C-more allows me to add rungs for "Execute on every scan", "Execute when called", etc.
It also allows me to break out separate sections under each of these headings to attempt some organization.
Are there some agreed upon best practices for structuring ladder logic programs? I'm trying to bring some sanity to the development process.
Document as you go. Logic, elements, memory map, etc. Document for "the other person", even if that person is YOU. PLCs and their programs tend to have a LONG life, so you will be glad 1 year, 5 years or even 20 years down the road when you have to tweak/debug that PLC. You'll be glad you explained things in a little more detail by documenting it for "the other person".
Do NOT wait until "the end" to document. Yes, that implies that you need to keep the documentation up-to-date.
There are no established norms in the PLC programming realm, I've been developing, commissioning, maintaining (and reverse-engineering) PLC programs for 26 years. Many organizations develop in-house standards, but there are no accepted industry-wide standards. However, a method I gleaned from an old pro dictates placing decision-making rungs first (evaluating conditions and setting flags), making control decisions in the next segment, turning outputs on/off in the next section, and monitoring performance/upset conditions in the last.
It's based on how older machines evaluated I/O and handled ladder execution. The advent of ladder 'sub-routines' has helped enormously; I generally treat each motor as a 'sub-system' element and assign its' own sub-routine.
Hope this helps!
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I have been evaluating DNN over a few months. It has it´s pros and cons. I find it hard to evaluate systems by reading articles and don´t have time to check them all on my own.
What are your general feeling about this?
As my background is with .net, which system would you choose?
Also, does anybody know if these pages at stack overflow is based on a CMS and if so which?
Since everyone would rather spend more time criticizing your post than answering it, I'll give it a shot.
You have a few options with building a portal. Either go with an established, open source portal (like DNN), look into some paid solutions or build your own.
Open Source - I've worked with DNN and MojoPortal. DNN is a little slower and has a few more requirements to develop skins and modules, but it has A LOT more features and some of the free/paid modules are really cool. Overall, DNN wins here, but if you don't need a large portal and you want to keep development really simple, MojoPortal might be better. MojoPortal has a few nice features that makes it easier to configure.
Open Source (Other) - There are tons of them out there. Orchard is one I'm thinking of because I'm interested in MVC. But, it's still young in terms of features and support.
Umbraco - I can't really speak to this because I have not used it, but it does have some popularity.
Build it - This is an option and allows the most flexibility, but it takes a lot of time and so many features that are built into these portals could be left out. Role based access, page management, page/module permissions, downloadable modules, profile/profile properties, file management, skinning, acct management, menu management, event logs, etc
I left out non .NET solutions like ones based on PHP, Grails, etc because you are a .NET developer. There is plenty out there, but sticking to .NET will help speed your development up.... unless you are just wanting to learn something new.
Hope this helps.
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I am looking for ideas for my undergraduate project and I quite like the area of High Performance Computing , has got a lot of scope for research . Are there any ideas / already existing open source projects worth looking at ?
One hot field right now is in the area of algorithmic trading. You can sign up for $3000 (if you're under 21 -- it's $10k for over 21) at InteractiveBrokers.com and they will give you a free paper trading account (which is fake money traded using realtime data) of $10,000,000. They have API's in C#, C++, VB, Java and reasonable support... You could write your own stock pair trading algorithm. They have good documentation on how to get started.
You can scale this as high as you want, also a lot of people do high frequency trading which requires hpc and in-depth knowledge of Unix and C++.
Worth looking into, my 2 cents.
Perhaps massively parallel processing? Libraries like Cuda, OpenCL, and DirectCompute are just blossoming, and have a high likelihood of becoming commonplace. In my company, we are researching uses for OpenCL, and we're finding that it has the potential to revolutionize our industry.
Just a thought.
I would suggest looking at Sandia National Labs's SST (The Structural Simulation Toolkit). Its a highly parallel simulator framework used for HPC. It uses and incorporates other simulators from academia and industry. For instance, it currently integrates GEM5, QSim, MacSim, DRAMSim, Merlin, Portals, DRAMSim2, Iris, etc. Moreover, it is open source so you can contribute to the development.
You could work on integrating other academia components into SST, improve the interface of one of the components with SST, or just improve of the components themselves.