If you are asked “What is the best skill for an Automation Engineer?” what would you say…
For me, definitely I would say Troubleshooting.
Troubleshooting really is one of the best skills that can distinguish an Automation Engineer from others.
That special skill requires you to have a deep understanding of both your (Automation system & Factory process) if one of the both are missed you might face some issues during the Troubleshooting.
So, what are the Troubleshooting techniques & Algorithms? How could you identify and solve the equipment failures and related problems?
If the situation is critical how could you temporarily solve the problem?
All of these questions will be answered in this article, so please stay focused and clear your mind.
When you are facing any kind of fault, the first thing that you have to consider in your mind “is your Maintenance Tools & Plant Data” which represents your arms when you are troubleshooting.
Wiring Diagrams, P&ID, Motors List, Devices Data Sheets, and system AFD you must ensure that you have all of these documents once you are responsible for maintenance, and also make sure that all of the plant panels contain the updated wiring.
Also, without your tools you will be handcuffed, for the next figure, you will see some of the basic tools that you cannot work without it.
Also Read: Instrument Technician Tools List
The Troubleshooting skill does not need a talented person as much as it needs an organized Mindset and very good prepared techniques.
So, you need to categorize and classify the type of faults that you may face:
The hardware faults mostly occurred in the field with your physical field devices and it is Caused by:
The software faults have two main reasons:
These types of failures we can call it a non-real fault as there are no any faults except that the operator has no deep understanding of the process, the operator does not know what are the interlocks (made into the programming code) between the machines and each other.
So, he might think that motor A is in a problem but in fact this motor has no any problem and it is only subject to the process conditions.
So, to avoid such a situation you have to understand the whole process very well and relate that to your plant code.
Also Read: DCS System Maintenance
Troubleshooting is an accurate skill; you cannot imagine how a very tiny wire or device into your Automation system could make a serious fault.
So, if you do not have the experience to notice and expect where is the fault you have to follow these simple procedures:
(by assuming that we have a motor that takes the start order from SCADA but it does not start …)
First of all, you have to ensure that the fault is outside the PLC, by going through the wiring diagram of that motor and get the address of the digital output (DO) that is responsible for energizing the starting relay. As shown in the next two figures:
You can see here in Fig (1) that is the wiring of the motor and we have selected it as the relay that is responsible for operating the motor at the AUTO condition.
Fig (1)
Then you have to search about the Digital output signal that is responsible for energizing that relay (KA240/3) as shown in Fig (2).
Fig (2)
Now you can go to your PLC card with the Output address and check the output status LED If it is ON that means the PLC is trying to energize the relay but there is a Hardware Fault
If the LED of the output address is OFF that means there is another Software fault inside the PLC.
Fig (3)
After limiting the fault in the hardware zone now let us start to track the fault in the Motor circuit.
Most motors in the Automation field consists of two circuits:
So, if you are not experienced to expect where is the fault you have to review each wire and each device at the control & power circuits but that should not be In a random way.
To get the best result you have to track your component with an organized technique (from up to down) or (from down to up).
Here you can see in the next figure the power circuit diagram for the motor.
After the fault tracking at the power circuit now we can check the control circuit for the motor.
As we said before the troubleshooting does not need a talented person as much as it needs a tidy person and also it needs a deep understanding of the Automation control circuit at your plant.
For any other Hardware faults, all you need to do is to make the same procedure at any other control circuit, just determine the begging of the circuit and start to track the fault.
I hope that really would be useful, the next article will talk about the Software faults so stay tuned.
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Respected sir can you please provide an electrical file of any cnc machine in autocad drawing format???