Does anybody here work in Power or Controls?

by power do you mean becomiong an electrician?

i do the installation part of what your asking mostly the control wiring etc and i love it compared to regular electrical type work (wiring offices etc) as far as gaing experience it seems like the majority of our installations use allen bradley plc's etc i would look into a course in plc programming
you could also pop in to the local union hall in the area your looking to move to they might be able to help you

im going through my apprenticeship to become a license electrician. its ok. its hard work. its interesting and dangerous. i do commerical work. im working in a school right now. we just got power in the building. 2500 amps at the switch gear. what are you reasons for finding a new job? are you finacially stable right now? depending on what you make now you make take a big pay cut to start off. do you have a family tp support?

m4i2k2e2 said:

im going through my apprenticeship to become a license electrician. its ok. its hard work. its interesting and dangerous. i do commerical work. im working in a school right now. we just got power in the building. 2500 amps at the switch gear. what are you reasons for finding a new job? are you finacially stable right now? depending on what you make now you make take a big pay cut to start off. do you have a family tp support?

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I doubt that an electrical engineer wants to change jobs to be an electrician.

I believe he's talking about designing power & control systems. Not wiring houses.

IndyMX said:

I doubt that an electrical engineer wants to change jobs to be an electrician.

I believe he's talking about designing power & control systems. Not wiring houses.

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whats wrong with being electrican :nener:

sparkysakitas said:

whats wrong with being electrican :nener:

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Nothing at all.. My brother is a Master Electrician. I have a lot of respect for guys who play with electricity all day.

it pays the bills and buys the bikes

The controls engineer has it hooked up. Very high demand, no matter what geographic location.

I am not an electrical eng. myself, but I have worked with PLC controls for years and have a working knowledge of the systems. I am not skilled enough to write the full programs from scratch, but I have gained the knowledge over the years to manipulate a written program.

Industry depends on controls engineers, and will for a long, long time.
If I were young, I would not hesitate to take up controls as an advocation.
They make pretty fair coin too. In many cases, they name their price, and get it.
I hired a controls man from AB when I was once on a job in MN that the former electrical folks hosed up considerably. He charged me $150 per hour, and that was in 1994. But then he came straight from AB corp in Minn.

Learn ladder logic and PLC's, as they are the most widely used today.

Someone actually doing this work could help you out much more, but I can tell you for a fact that controls engineering is in high demand, and with good pay.
The work tends to get a bit specialized as well. I have had control engs on my jobs that have absolutely no clues as to how the field I'm in works. They have the basic knowledge, but they are lost when it comes to our specific needs. I will never again use engs that have no basic knowledge of my particular field, as they always try to re-invent the wheel and end up looking silly.
I have hired competent controls men to clean up other clowns work before.

Best of luck to ya.

I've been a process controls engineer for about 18 years now. I have computer engineering and electronic engineering degrees and the school I attended had courses that introduced us to PLC's etc. While attending school I did an internship for Tony's Pizza as a controls tech (we did a lot of board level repair, some programming etc. First real job after school was a Phillips chemical facility in Houston Tx (that's where my learning really began). I've worked for several normal companies and also been a contract integrator (that's what I'm doing now), definite advantages and disadvantages both ways.

Almost every contract outfit I know is constantly looking for people (even interns). We'll hire someone with basic knowledge if we believe they are highly trainable, great work ethic etc (guessing starting salary around 55k-60k or so).

The more you know about electricity, mechanical devices, plant operation etc etc etc the better you will be at process controls. If you want to be a contractor you better be damn good or you'll never last, plant jobs are better suited to more casual workload and quality lol.

Standard ladder logic is fading and has been for years but it'll still be here in 30 years. Learn VB as tons of operator interface apps now use it or another scripting language (which will be very similar), not to mention you'll need the VBA portion of it for other uses.

If we hired someone with 5 years exp (and he was good), we'd probably start them out at 65-70k with avg bennies and chances for bonuses on top of that.

Generally speaking in my experience plant jobs are way easier, slightly better bennies but also get boring fairly quickly. Contractor jobs you'll make beer for awhile then cement, dog food, aluminum cans (ie more fun and challenging). Either way expect to work some holidays, most startups are scheduled around plant downtimes.

Be prepared for lots of pressure also. With millions of dollars of equipment being installed over 6 months, 2 months eaten up by electricians and then the startup window being squeezed down from 3 weeks to 1 the VP's and managers all show up and expect you to hit the "GO" button on day 1 lol.

If you have any more specific questions just give me a shout.

I work at a wastewater treatment plant.We have our staff electricians who learned all that stuff on the job.about 8 years ago the whole plant was automated and now pretty much runs by computer.We have a full time programmer who set up the Ifix program we use.If you could find a plant that is looking to automate you will be set to retire.You won't get rich in government but it is pretty much secure.If I know what the programmer knows i would be starting my own buisness doing installations.Something to consider.

IndyMX said:

Nothing at all.. My brother is a Master Electrician. I have a lot of respect for guys who play with electricity all day.

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you make a good point. i didnt put thought into what i asked. i didnt relize he meant to design them.

Starting a controls business is an idea I've toyed with for years but... You'll need around 25k in software (just for starters), several computers, an office, lots of legal help, 2 million insurance (most places won't even let you in the door without it). You can probably plan on at least 10k/year in software upgrades and new products. Hardware and software so you can simulate your work before going to the field will set you back another 20-30k. Any support from Modicon, AB, Intellution etc will require more money for continuing support programs or a friend in the industry. You'll also need a customer base large enough to keep you busy with time phased projects (since you'll be working alone and can only do 1 startup at a time). Don't expect ANY time off (with income still coming through the door) until you're big enough to have at least 2 other programmers working for you. We've been looking for good controls people for 3 years and have hired and fired two. We just recently hired 2 more but nobody is holding their breath that they will live up to expectations. Any type of goverment work to a contractor will NOT be given out without bids so you can expect to lose at least half of that work (unless you bid to lose money) to other companies that will come in and low bid the project just to keep their people busy and get their feet in the door. God forbid you try to get work from a company that has engineers that have buddies who are in the controls field. There are very few jobs you could even bid on because it'd be impossible for you to provide the 24 hour support during startup situations.

It's a dog eat dog world out there in the controls field and the ONLY way for a small startup to survive is to provide nearly flawless work each and every time, go way above and beyond what most of the industry is willing to do, bid low and do large volumes of work until you have a stable customer base.

At one time I estimated that I'd average 80 hours a week for a bare minimum of 2 years just to survive.

FYI - you mentioned iFix, a full blown scada license for that alone will run you around 7k.

boy am i glad im on the installation end and not the programming design end. we are currently doing a 8 mil electrical upgrade to a waste water plant (its really a reclaimed water facitly) steady work for next 1 1/2 years :yeehaw:

Our current programer/computer guy started out as a wastewater treatment operator way back when.He had some college computer programing back in in the late 70's using those punch card systems.Didnt use it much afterwards.Somehow he was transfered into running the computer system set up we were going thru and just grew with it over time and he has gotten really good at it.He does have that certain ability to grasp programming quickly.I have watched him do his work on Ifix and it doesn't look all that hard to be honest.It does take a good memory to know what to do with all the coding etc.All i am saying is that perhaps somewhere the same scenerio maybe happen for you...perhaps it's not what you are looking for.I use wastewater treatment as an example because i don't know of a plant that isn't interested in some kind of automation.And if you or anybody else could find a larger type plant that is in the early stages of automation you would be set for most likely till your retirement.We are well into our automation and are still adding things monthly if not weekly as we discover additional ways to operate using probes/graphing etc.The cool part is we discover things happening in the biological side that we would not have known otherwise.So similar to unpeeling and onion so to speak...layers reveal more layers.I am sure this is the same with refineries where complex operations are involved.We went from a 30 man crew /3 shifts down to 7 operators/a shift and a half.Lucky for us the place where i worked let the guys retire out over time than cut jobs.They simply did not rehire.Our computer guy has a very secure job because he is the only guy who knows the system.( I argue with the staff that we need to train another guy--if we ever lose him for some unseen reason.we would be in big trouble) Just some thoughts.