Novice Instrument Person

As a beginner to the instrumentation world i would highly appreciate if anyone could help me and guide me in the right direction. Can anyone please let me know what resources are available for beginners like me when it comes to instrumentation? something like online courses, catalogs, books etc. Anything that you feel can be helpful
I am really passionate about learning instrumentation so any helpwould be highly appreciated.
Eric
 
There must be a dozen text books out there. Search for process instrumentation text. I've noticed that there's a trend towards 'renting' for a semester, which is the rental of a printed version for the one or two I looked at.

Bela Liptak's 3 volume set of "Instrument Engineer's Handbook(s)", of which he is chief editor; is really a collection of contributions by numerous authors cited in each chapter. Each volume has gone through several editions by now.

Volume 1 was specifically "Process Measurement and Analysis", but was renamed "Measurement and Safety" in the 5th edition. the instrumentation volume. Volume 2 was "Process control and Optimization", Volume 3 is "Process Software and Digital Networks"

Either the text books or Liptak will cost you a lot.

My recommendation for a must-have is Tony Kuphaldt's massive tome on instrumentation, "Lessons In Industrial Instrumentation, version 2.13" a free pdf download from the link below. It's 3400 pages ! ! ! !
Lessons in Industrial Instrumentation 2.13

Tony uses lots of "cell phone" photos which for purposes of teaching instrumentation (he was an industrial electronics instrumentation teacher until very recently) cell phone photos work just great for web publishing. So the book is well illustrated.

The first couple hundred pages is electronics, but if you know that stuff, skip it and go on to the instrumentation.

I have bought dozens of older out-of-date instrumentation books when the price drops to $10 or less from used book sites. I'm fascinated with the mechanical designs in pneumatics and pre-microprocessor analog designs that accomplished the task as well as they did.

Just reading the manuals for the instrumentation you deal with can be eye-opening. I'd say that half of the questions I answer on fora are for devices that I've never seen or worked with, but the manual has the information in it.

The quality of vendor documentation varies, like everything in life. Sometimes another's vendor's explanation of, say, calculating this or that, is better than another's. The major vendors do tend to be good at selection or engineering guides which cover the ponts that one should consider when selecting instrumentation. It pays to save selection guides and to collect every different version of documents like corrosion guides.

For continuing learning experiences, read through threads on a forum like this one. Fora address real-life problems and frequently the advice is based on practical experience, which is stuff that is not covered in vendor documentation. I frequently save threads that provide a known solution, even though I haven't run into it, because if it happened somewhere, it's likely to happen again, this time on my shift.
 
As usual, David_2 is on target!

I also buy used text- and reference books. There are many websites which sell used books, but I have had the best luck with Alibris. I have ordered books which were sent from international sellers and which were exactly as described (condition--wise), if not better.

There is no substitute for RTFM: Reading The ... F.... Fine Manual--that's it, the Fine Manual. We get a LOT of questions that are clearly covered in the vendor's manuals and/or documentation but people just won't take the time to find them or skim through them looking for information. One can learn a LOT of things about the instruments/equipment they are working on if they will only look at the documentation provided. Is it light, easy reading? No. Is it fun? No. Is it organized in a manner you think is intuitive or proper? Not usually. But, it can be very enlightening sometimes, as well as instructive and informative. (Your supervisor might not think reading manuals is the best use of your time--but it can be very helpful and save a lot of time in many cases. You shouldn't have to take this stuff home to read and peruse; it's an investment in your knowledge and skill and familiarity that usually pays off--maybe not right away, but almost always when it's important and time is of the essence. AND, would they rather have you reading the manual when the plant is down and you need to help get it re-started, or when you have a few minutes of peace and quiet and can absorb the material? Ask him/her what their choice is: in the heat of trial by fire or when there's some time to think and digest information that can be valuable in the heat of troubleshooting???)

I don't know if there are many still available, but trade journals can be an excellent source of information about MANY things. (I'm referring to printed versions; I think many are available on-line, but I like to dog-ear pages with useful information and to be able to re-read older versions when I'm looking for something I've read or skimmed over before.) A good advertisement in a trade journal will tell you precisely why one manufacturer's widget is superior to another's, which can be very informative and useful when deciding to purchase new equipment or instruments, or when the list strikes a chord with some issue you've been having with some instrument or piece of equipment about this or that (possible) capability either in the existing device or in a new device. Many of the articles in trade journals are advertisements, but some are very useful and enlightening.

I have worked in the engineering departments of factories and I can tell you some of the best engineers I worked with had stacks of trade journals delivered to their desks/cubicles most weeks. They would carve out a small time each week to sit and page through them, stopping to read some ads or articles, dog-earing pages to remember things, take the journal to the photocopier and copy some really useful or important information, and I believe it made them better engineers (than those who just kept their nose to the grindstone and never looked outside their cubicle or enriched their engineering experience through the use of a trade journal). If for no other reason than to see what other engineers were working on and what the state of the art was advancing to this week.

And, as David_2 says: Reading fora like this one can also be very helpful and informative--sometimes even funny (we do try!). And information about real-world issues and problems and questions can be invaluable. One of the best aspects of Control.com is: Feedback. We like to say, "Feedback is the most important contribution!" (c) at Control.com--because when people who have posted for help or information write back to let others know if the information or help was useful, or not, as the case can sometimes be, then people who read the threads (now and later) can see if the original poster found the help or information useful--or not. Which, in my personal opinion, is VERY valuable. I read a LOT of fora where people never provide feedback on the help or information they received--and sometimes the help or information seems a little ... questionable. (Sometimes real-world solutions are not what one expects, also!) So, feedback helps--a lot (again, in my personal opinion).

Control.com has a LOT of archived information, all available by using the 'Search' feature. I heartily encourage people to use the 'Search' feature (the "archives") of Control.com when looking for information or help, and if you don't find what you're looking for you may find something which is of interest now or in the future--and then you can post a thread to get your specific question answered.

Welcome to the world of instrumentation, and automation. And to Control.com!
 
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