Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, everybody. Sean Tierney here, and I'm announcing
a fundraiser
for something I've been wanting to do for
a long time, the automation museum.
And I thought this would be a great
place where we could feature
the history of industrial automation. And, of course,
they'll have other parts too. There'll be other
technologies covered to this like computers. You wanna
cover computers as well. But, in any case,
(00:22):
for you and I, the biggest thing would
be automation, I think.
And the whole thought process behind this came
when, you know, I'm collecting,
all this equipment, do training courses, and I've
been doing this for thirty five years. And
I some old things are just, you know,
sentimental to me and I don't wanna throw
them away. And I know there's a lot
of you out there who are in the
(00:42):
same boat. A matter of fact, you've sent
me some great stuff because we've talked about
my desire to open up an automation museum.
And so I'm hoping if we can get
just 3% of you out there who follow
me
to, just to give a few dollars,
we could actually get the nonprofit
organization
set up and start accepting really big donations
(01:05):
from large corporations. Now that's not to say
I don't think that all of us, together,
you know, the 80,000,
controls engineers in The US couldn't do this.
We could,
but it's a lot easier when you have
a five zero one three c and you
can get money because a lot of these
big companies, they have a edict that they
have to give away so much money every
(01:26):
year. Right? They have all these great profits,
so they have to give some away. And
so we wanna be able to tap into
that some too. So, you know, let's think
of this future automation museum. Maybe there's a
Rockwell wing, and Rockwell sponsors some new displays
there or a Siemens wing or a Schneider
wing or
whoever. Right?
I mentioned those three guys first because they're
some of my biggest sponsors. Right? But we
(01:47):
could also have a Moxa and a P
and F and all the other great vendors
who've, met with Toledo who sponsored content here.
I should probably name them all, but there's
so many of them. Right? But in any
case, I think it'd be very cool to
have a place where not only the stuff
gets displayed,
but you and I can share our knowledge
with the rest of the industry. So, you
(02:09):
know, when I retire maybe in ten or
twenty years, I hope, maybe,
you know, who who's gonna like, if somebody
has to go work on a PLC five
or a SIC 500 or a Micrologix, where
are they gonna find
that information? Maybe they're gonna work on a
PLC two. Maybe they'll work on a PDQ
or an s one or s two or
some of the really old emoticon 84. Right?
(02:30):
So,
how are they gonna get,
that information. Right? And how are they gonna
learn how to use it and maintain it?
And then how are new controls engineers
gonna understand
where the industry started? Why things are the
way they are? Why 06/1131
came where it came from, and why it
was so important to our industry to kinda
try to standardize
(02:50):
the the technology. Right?
And so that's what I thought. I just
put this up. Brandon and I both, contributed
some money. I also donated the, the.org
and the.com to the to the organization. And
what we're looking for is really just the
first stage is to get up to $3,000.
Right? And if we can get the $3,000,
we can get the five zero one three
(03:12):
c set up and,
we can, start taking bigger,
bigger contributions. Right? And, but in any case,
I hope you guys are interested in this.
And I wanna now switch over and talk
about some of this old technology here.
And, I wanna talk about PLC five. So,
what a great product this was when it
(03:32):
came out. If any of you were around
during the transition
from two to fives now, I got into
1990.
Right? So the PLC five came out in
'86. I think it was gonna supposed to
come out in '85, but then Rockwell bought
Allen Bradley. That's one of the stories I
heard. It was kinda delayed a little bit
and came out in '86. Could be totally
totally wrong. But in any case, that's the
kind of stuff we could we could archive
(03:54):
at the Automation Museum.
But, you know, the PLC five was just
so much more phenomenal than the PLC two
in many ways. And I'm sure there's some
PLC two lovers out there saying, but but
but
but, I just love that, you know, having
learned,
in college, having learned how to program microprocessors.
Right? Using machine code. And then, you know,
(04:15):
having, you know, learned, you know, c, you
know, all these different languages, Pascal, basic, as
a as a kid, really.
You know, when I came to the PLC
two and the slick one fifty, it was
like or slick 100. It was really difficult
because, like, everything was numeric. Like, it had
all these numeric tables and yet to remember
everything. And while, you know, I could read
the book and understand it was hard given
(04:37):
that concept to electricians who would call in
for help.
And so,
when the PLC five came out, one of
the huge things they added
was
letters in front of the the the data
table addresses. So t's for timers, b for
counters, n for ninja, c, you know, f
for floating point, you know, and all these
different things. And it just made i's for
(04:59):
inputs, o for outputs, and it just
so made so things so much better. Plus,
the PLC five
was the,
first
PLC
that Rockwell made
that,
there was no handheld program before it. Now
I never heard of one. I never heard
of anybody using a t four or t
five or t six to program them. I've
(05:20):
never found any reference to that in any
literature. Maybe you guys know something different. But
for as far as I know, these units
had to be programmed with a PC. A
lot of electricians didn't have PCs. I remember
arguing with my boss in the early nineties
that it's just give me a copy of
Windows so I could,
support, the Wintelligent
series from ICOM, great software.
But in any case,
(05:41):
you know, and and that really moves the
industry forward as well because there's so much
thing so much more you can do with
a PC
than you could do with a, you know,
an old electronic handheld programmer.
And, now if you take a close look
here, I'm sure some of you see that
one of these PLCs is not a PLC
five. That's right. I stuck in. I don't
it must be in the garage, you know,
(06:02):
my old studio at home. I don't know
where the five,
I think it's the five eleven is. But
in any case, so I stuck in because
it looks so similar, a mini PLC two.
I don't know. Is this a five o
is this a two sixteen or two seventeen?
Two sixteen.
So I used this a lot in the
early nineties as well to support the gotta
be careful here because they're like dominoes. They
(06:22):
can all fall over. But,
to support the POC two and, you know,
use an AI and, six two hundred. But
in any case, over here, you could see
the original four. And, again, these these I've
picked these up over the years,
for the course I'm teaching on POC fives,
which is still on which just is just
getting started. But in any case,
you can see over here the original PLC
(06:42):
fives and then the next generations, I don't
have a five eighty. I know you're somebody's
probably asking, hey. Do you get a five?
No. I mean, these
I had some people some some old colleagues
say, oh, they they must be, like, a
million dollars each. It's like, no. You can
get them for a $100.
The problem is the software. The software, there's
no cheap way to get a official license.
I wanna thank one of our viewers actually,
(07:03):
tree,
re
how do I wanna put this? He he,
gave me he transferred his software to me
so I could support it here at the,
at the automation school and the automation blog.
So, thank you very much. And,
we trade I I sent them a micro
and some other stuff in in exchange, but,
it was great to get that so I
could support the, support the the students out
(07:25):
there. But in any case,
that's the problem. The the hardware is very
inexpensive. I got a piles of seventeen seventy
one I o cars I'll go through in
the course.
They're actually over here in a box that
I'll be going through. I even have the
sidecar. The infamous sidecar works so well, but
was so expensive and
got this continued. It's way too early, I
think.
(07:46):
But, in any case, I like the sidecar.
It's a little,
hardware wise, you know, you gotta use up
that first slot, but and it's just works
so well.
But in any case,
the PLC fives, this is this is, some
knowledge. Right? And the PLC twos and threes.
The this is knowledge that a lot of
people,
(08:06):
don't have today. And so as people are
retiring. Right?
You know, they may say, well, we have
to throw it away because it's nobody knows
how to use it, but you don't. These
things are monsters. They're awesome. They're they're granted,
they don't do coordinated motion and servos and
all that. But, man, you can do a
racks and racks and racks and racks of
IO with these things, analog and digital, and
(08:28):
they just they they they program in multiple
languages unlike, you know, the slick fiber and
micrologics.
And it's just some of the history that
will be lost and we're already losing, you
know, on some of the products that came
out in the sixties and seventies and eighties.
Right? And and now the nineties. Right? And
so this is the type of stuff I
would like to have on display
(08:48):
and,
have that a physical automation museum,
which would have to be located somewhere near
my office,
you know, unless we've raised a lot of
money where we could afford someplace,
touristy. You know, maybe next next to one
of the big theme packs, theme parks or
something. But in any case,
I do think,
(09:08):
a lot of you out there too have
some great stuff that you would like to
donate.
And, I know a lot of people are
like, no. No. No. Get sell it on
eBay. You know, make a quick buck. And,
you know, I guess if if the automation
museum doesn't take off, if we don't raise
enough money, instead of donating a lot of
this hardware, I will end up just,
selling it on eBay. Right?
(09:29):
But I much rather donate it to a
nonprofit
and, have them set up. And not only
be set up so and have the story
there, but also how to use them. Like,
we'd, like, have a course. It's like, I'll
even donate my time to teach
how to use this old stuff, the stuff
I know. Right? So we were talking about
one of the products I shared. Somebody sent
in a PCMK card, and, I get just
(09:51):
got a ton of stories about that that
I'd love to share with, with the world,
and I'm sure you guys do too. It
would be great to have,
have be able to do that. But in
any case, to start, to know if there's
enough interest out there, I got a 100,000
followers.
We're looking to raise $3,000
for phase one so we can get that
five zero one three c,
set up and get a a basic website
(10:12):
set up so we can see if we
can go to the next level and get
some corporate sponsors. But if we can't do
that, we can't do that. But if there's
enough of you out there, enough, you know,
what is,
you know, if we get the 3,000 of
the 100,000 followers out there to give $1
each, then it should be a no brainer.
But if there's no interest, there's no interest.
Right?
But I think it would be really cool
to be able to,
pass on the knowledge and really understanding how
(10:35):
it all gets started. Right? And so people
understand the journey. You know, it's kinda like
you go to like, we have the Hancock
Shaker Village down here where they show how
things were done in the old days. Right?
And they got, you know, the forges and,
you know, everything's, you know, horsepower.
And, I think it would be great to
do that with automation as well. But with
that said, that's all I have. So if
you're interested,
(10:56):
give sengo.com
forward /automationmuseum.
This will be part of a bigger tech,
technology museum that also have some computers in
it. It won't be focused on computers. It's
gonna be focused on automation.
But, you know, I got a lot of
stuff I wanna donate, so we can have
some little history of computers there as well,
maybe history of some other technology too, you
(11:18):
know, like RS two thirty two. I mean,
how how long do we use that USB?
You know, just so much, you know, Ethernet.
You're right. How about, you know and base
I know so many people need basic Ethernet
training.
So, in any case, I kinda think that
they go hand in hand. But, with that,
I'm gonna leave the video there. This is
my first fundraiser video. I hope you guys
enjoyed it. I hope you'll take some interest
(11:39):
in helping us launch the Automation Museum,
and I'm not gonna accept any more any
more, hardware until we get the 505013
c set up so I can actually send
people receipts for whatever the going value is.
So you can actually if you're donating so
I know some people can't accept the the,
they can't donate on pot on behalf of
themselves. But in any case, I know large
(12:00):
companies too. If a large company has, like,
three or four old trade show demos, a
lot of times they throw them away. It's
like, don't throw them away. What are you
doing? I in my old job, I would
get some, and I would use them at
the old shop. And, it's like, don't why
would you throw that stuff away? Well, it's
old stuff, but,
gee, it's there's millions of them installed all
over the place. So don't
(12:21):
anyways,
I just wanna wish you guys I hope
you enjoyed this video. I wanna wish you
all a great weekend, and please consider,
donating. If you have a few extra bucks,
please consider donating something over at givesendgo.com/automationmuseum.
And with that, I wanna thank you all
for listening. And until next time, my friends,
peace.