Programmable Logic Controllers, PLCs, Reliability.

PLCs are not about all the long list that gets hauled out about their speed and ease of programming and all the issues of "how they work". PLCs are about reliability. PLCs are expensive... for reasons that many are too late in understanding.

You can make your own PLC if you work out how to get the hardware and ecosystem up to or better than the standards for existing PLC reliability. Most will never understand what this requires until they fail. Nor will they have the self awareness to get past their own flaws and look outwards (and maybe even bypass failure?).

Am I challenging you? Yes. Am I challenging you to "self sufficiency" or "rugged individualism"? Look at how ecosystem plays to reliability and then ecosystems like the open source and maker movement and then decide.

Are PLC use cases what is driving the massive reduction of costs in underpinnings of their function?  Spoiler: It is the glass screen in your pocket, and the search bar everywhere.

"Come now, let us reason together". You want to build one? Yes you do! *grin* Let's see how.

MIT Mini Maker Faire.

MIT Mini Maker Faire
MIT Mini Maker Faire
October 4, 2014, North Court, east of Stata Center,  9a-6p

Reference Books for Device, Apparatus and Electronics Design.

One wants to get started building a device - a mechanism, a gadget, or an apparatus. Where to start? One can learn from peers and mentors. One can read magazines like Make, Circuit Cellar and Elektor. But what are the best reference books?

Classics:
Horowitz and Hill - Art of Electronics - Long in 2nd edition. Long rumored 3rd edition.

Richardson and Smith - Experimental Techniques in Condensed Matter Physics. (okay so I have a bias *grin* knowing them)

Moore, Davis and Copeland - Building Scientific Apparatus - little bit tilted to chemistry, but excellent overall.

More modern: Pratt - Make: Electronics

More ancient: Brown - 507 Mechanical Movements (Dover)

Meet more modern peers and mentors at a Maker Festival? Or at a Hackerspace?

Or go back to the past like at the Harvard Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments?

Renaissance of the DIY Electronics Store.

Most who are old enough remember when Radio Shack

had walls of electronics and hardware components for DIY

The dawn of the Twenty First Century seemed to bode poorly for such retail. Catalog companies like Jameco and MPJA, and even the majors like Digikey and Mouser  became the source of choice for DIY.

Online sales outlets then saw growth. Some above morphed to online. And many project oriented experimenters (“hackers”, “makers” – what have you) moved to coordination with such online entities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adafruit_Industries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkfun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_(magazine)

And there are closely allied entities (physical or conceptual DIY)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makerbot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprap

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructables

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cutter

And one can get practically anything from Amazon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com

And well executed online hardware thrives in forms like McMaster-Carr   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMaster-Carr

But the retail store is not dead... Sometimes as a hybrid works - like fasteners from Fastenal   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastenal

And Home Depot and Walmart are developing online presence to leverage their retail…

But getting back to the point. DIY modules are now back on the walls at Radio Shack. And they are popping up else where. There is a whole section at Microcenter in Cambridge for such. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Center

CompUSA and Fry’s are similar (and there are some locals still holding on like You-Do-It in Waltham).

Might not be long before craft supply and home improvement get on the band wagon? And there are always players like Walmart which might take up the banner. One wonders if such a game change could save Kmart/Sears?

Somerville Maker Faire - 2012-OCT-13

Somerville Maker Faire - on Saturday October 13, 2012 - sadly cannot make it - visiting family.
http://www.makerfairesomerville.com/

Took a look at hackerspaces list
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Boston
and was intrigued by Artisan's Asylum.
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Artisan%27s_Asylum
http://artisansasylum.com/

Saw them mentioned in the Boston Phoenix 10.12.12 p14
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/life/145599-robot-invasion/

Which led to
http://www.makerfairesomerville.com/