hi all,

we are in the process of renovating our control laboratory. for this we will be purchasing some
equipment. please suggest that what is the equipment that should be purchased to justify the modernisation of the lab. this lab is for the undergraduate and post graduate students. any information in this regard will be highly appreciated.

thanks and regards

=====
Manmohan Singh, Lecturer
Electrical and Instrumentation Engineering Department
Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology,
Longowal-148106, District-Sangrur, Punjab (India)
www.geocities.com/sona_singh

 

An interesting question. I would suggest the following:

1. An assortment of PLCs, I/O racks, and I/O cards from various manufacturers.

2. PCs with Windows 2000 on them and some SCADA packages of assorted flavors. Also MS Office.

3. PCs with Linux loaded on it Not something your students will ever likely see but probably a good teaching and learning tool.

4. Misc motion control components. Brand is not all that important but you probably should get some ball screw slides, servo motors, stepper motors, and drives/controllers for these things.

5. A low end DCS system so your students get some exposure to such things.

6. Networking equipment - ethernet, profibus, Modbus, etc. These are very common in the marketplace and few schools bother to teach much about them.

7. Some CNC equipment. Its something your students will run across from time to time and they should have some idea what they are dealing with.

8. Instrumentation of various flavors - pH, conductivity, pressure, temperature, etc. Calibration equipment,

9. Sensors of various types - hard switches, prox switches, encoders, etc.

10. Tools! Voltmeters, analog simulators and other such usefull items.

As you can tell, my list is oriented towards the more practical aspects of control. These are the things they will see once they get out of school, so why not expose them to these things before they leave school.

You might also want to have an assortment of PCI or ISA I/O cards available for those who want to "roll their own".

Some of this stuff you might be able to convince a manufacturer to donate to your school.

Bob Peterson