Can't say I blame you. But being from an IT background I'd be interested in doing both - if the opportunity arose (which I don't think it will). At a previous job I got the opportunity to do a little bit - they still have panels designed and programmed by yours truly running moulding machines and the water system pumps. Nothing complex, just small panels with a
Siemens Logo (original version, digital I/O only, no communications) - IIRC something like 8 or 12 inputs and 4 or 8 outputs, with a limit of something like 7 functions between any input and an output, and only 53 function blocks total (funny how numbers like that stick in your mind and pop out a couple of decades later !) Choice of programming on-device (painful) or on computer with ladder or function block styles.
No, I don't think it was - it certainly doesn't fit your description of the plumbing side.
This one was an off the shelf 3 pump set for use as a booster in blocks of flats etc, controlled by a number of pressure switches and a "box of something". It was probably fine for the job it was designed for - making sure that everyone in the block gets water pressure. Thing is, IIRC in our system that wasn't the requirement - it just had to take water from a big tank, pump it through a large fin&tube cooler, and up into a header tank with a variable draw off rate. I have a vague recollection that there was a 'kin big ballcock up there. So the controls were the opposite of what we needed.
In fairness, the guy did say that the reason for buying that was that it was a cheap way to get the three pumps (Grundfoss things 2 or 3 foot high IIRC). I think it got setup so that one pump ran continuously and the got manually switched every now and then.
In a later development, the pumps got controlled by an ABB inverter drive in it's "run on up, when it's getting up to full speed, drop the speed and fire up another using it's DOL starter" mode - using an ultrasonic level sensor. It really needed a flow sensor and nested control loops as what we had was exceedingly non-linear - but that wasn't something I was allowed to add to it during the time I was there. The sharp changes in flow rate played havoc with the controls on the fan cooler, causing rapid changes in fan speed needed, but which we couldn't do because a fast PID loop was unstable at low flow rates with a long lag time between fan speed changes and sensor feedback. The fan cooler also had an ABB inverter drive, running 6 fans all variable speed - but controlled by another panel controlling how many fans running.
Mind you, if you really want a laugh, some of the stuff we had was designed by the chief engineer of our US based owners - who had some interesting ideas. One large machine came with no guarding because he designed it to their safety standards, not ours. He also designed it for their power supplies, so we had to add a 'kin big transformer to power it. It would have been trivial to have had it built for 415V - heaters in star instead of delta, pick a different model of inverter drives for the motors - but he didn't.
But the thing I think you'll laugh at was he came up with a composite mould as a cheaper alternative to the tin ones we used - we made candles. Basic principle for many of them was "big cast iron chest, lots of moulds mounted vertically, heat everything up with hot water, pour in wax, cool it down with cold water, crank the pistons up to push the candles out. We used tin for it's thermal conductivity ...
Our US friends came up with the idea of composite (glass filled resin) which were a lot cheaper to buy (our tin ones suffered from wear and needed frequent replacement). No amount of "discussion" would have their engineer accept that the thermal conductivity was lower and would
significantly affect cycle times and water usage
Our guy setup a demonstration, plugged the bottom of one each of the two moulds and put the kettle on. I suspect you're ahead of me here.
Our US friend holds a mould in each hand, our guy pours hot water into their composite mould, asks how it is, is told "it's getting warm". Our guy then pours hot water into the tin mould, US guy immediately utters an expletive and lets go of it
But he then explains that it doesn't count because the hot water was inside the mould rather than outside of it
This was the same guy that proposed a water system that would have blown the seals out on the moulding machines in the event of a power or pump failure. We installed a system using gravity, open vented, and impossible to pressurise the machines and blow the seals
But we're going further OT here (no MODs, that's not an invitation to lock the thread
), even though it is fun to exchange tales like this