Industrial Automation and Control Systems lab is 9am to 11am today, but it was de facto 9am to 12.15pm, lunch break then 1.30pm to 3.30pm. The staggering long hours? Here's why.
This was the given connection diagram for a closed loop control system:
My first time in 3.5 years of study, I'm seeing a T circuit. Cool. So how to connect physically? I interpreted it as such:
"Hmm, I'm not too sure myself, but do this:" was the response of the teaching assistant
Then I replied: "Huh? Doesn't this means that the Controller, Reader and the Resistance unit are all in parallel, like this:"
Teaching assistant: "Not too sure, just connect the T circuit first, then jump the terminals to the Resistance unit."
Hooked everything up, assuming that the black box Resistance unit has some special connection hidden. Double, triple, quadruple checked, swapped terminals, still not functioning. Fiddled, meddled with the Controller not working still. Swapped controller unit, futile. This experiment seemed forlorn we almost relented.
Just when all hope was gone, the TA showed us a circuit diagram from his manual, or his previous lab report saying the connection should be like this. We then realized something was not right. The resistor was blardy in series with the power supply and temperature transmitter while in parallel with the Controller and Reader, which was this:
This is an epitome of how something simple turned complex. Next time, I shall learn to trust my instinct and bother to try it out instead of taking others' words for granted.
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