Video Final Belfast

Where is our end product. A retrospective from our trip.

         

                                       

Goodbye everyone...

Hello everyone.

I’m back to Portugal but my heart is still in Belfast. I can't believe that that time up there was so fast! But I know one thing: That was one of the best summers of my life.

I think that from the minute we landed in Belfast, we all had that feeling of wanting to explore every corner of the city and going everywhere (well, now we know that such thing is not possible. lol).

As a first time without parents nearby I have to admit that the experience went really fine. I had no problems fitting in the city, no problems with the food, and the people, they are just amazing! Even the cab driver makes us laugh! Not like in Portugal, which they just ask for the destination and the money.

Our week, from Monday to Thursday, was on duty, working 8 hours a day.

So during weekends we had to enjoy everything the city has to offer. In our residence, students’ residence, we had the opportunity to live with Italians, German, and Spanish people. We would party every weekend with the Spanish! They are always ready to enjoy a nice evening with friends and even more when we hit the night! Then they get real crazy.

It’s hard to put those six weeks into words, it was probably the best experience on my life. Just hope I can do it again.

I really enjoyed getting to know and live with the Spanish mates, they were my friends and family there.

here is the last photo of me and Bruno with the spanish guys!

Goodbye to all of you who followed the blog.

Farewell Belfast InternShip

This will be my last Blogue here because the internship has finish.So i like tto say a couple of words about my internship.
Its been a great experience working with new people on my job because in the end off my course we are going on an internship and with this experience I will more relaxed but still anxious to work.

My "Family" at work             

Its been an awesome experience and I want to thanks all personal that help me at my work and in belfast and INETE for give me the opportunity to go to Belfast and Work there.

I recommend people to aply to the internship because you will love the support and the adventure that is going outside the Country.

Caterpilar Entry

Farewell Belfast and all the friends made there and maybe we will see us again sometime.

Work Progress and Last Week

Hi all!
We finally entered the last week stretch. During the past week I made lots of progress on my temperature project.

Matrix done for easier access to gathered information

Selected Module (HR-LRS), plus 1/2 Antenna

Although the power consumption is quite high, the HR-LRS is the one that fulfills our needs in this case. Unfortunately after some workaround with the measurements which also includes the 2 second period of higher amperage (140mA) we verified that if we wanted to achieve the goal of a battery life for at least 5 years we would have to use expensive batteries like a 9V and adapt the Dev Board to use them, which on the long run would be costly.

I also manage to finish my resume about CE Marketing and European Directives.

A sample of my resume

During this week I will finish the range measurements and I will also start another project. This new project is about candy dispenser machines, how can I improve or arrange a way of effectively count the coins that remain at the end considering the exchange given and the quantity of candy sold.

My first Post

Hello.I have been working for three weeks now on, a company called Caterpillar at Monkstown. The building that where i am working on, is huge and has a lot of machines that have different tasks.
But before i talk about the different machines that exist on my factory i will show you all first the place where i work at.

Workshop 1 floor

Workshop

This this the maintenance workshop that i work and where i keep my clothes and stuff.I work with the maintenance guys on the factory.I basically observe and help them when they need, follow them everywhere and learn a lot about the machines that the factory has.

FMS

Has i said there are a lot of  big machinery there.Some examples:

FMS

Laser

Mechanical Welding Arm

I pass most of my time outside the workshop because the machines or other electrical or mechanical equipment that needs to be repaired or it needs to do a preventive maintenance.
In this weeks i have been learning a lot how the machines works because there is always someone who likes to explain it , supports me and let me do small things to repair that piece of equipment.

Helping the guys building the structure and mounting the cables

I have been working in a project that my boss gave me that is basically doing the electrical scheme of the panels and sockets where the new machines are being mounted that helping the maintenance guys when they have problems with electricity there, in case that the fuse panel keeps going down.
Last I am excited for the next few weeks that left because in this to weeks probably the new machines that are going to be installed in the factory will be completed.I hope i see them work and i have the luck to be with the guys to do the maintenance of that machine.
I hope you enjoy this post i will see you all in the next week.

Research and Testing

Like I promised, I'm here to show you a little bit more of my work during the past week.

After checking that the temperature sensors weren't working as they should, my new task was to research the consumption of the Dev Board and the Module along with the emission of different antennas.

Improvisation also works

I didn't have the adequate cables to make a proper reading, so a little improvisation did the trick.

After this quick workaround I managed to start getting some values.

Finally some decent values

After running the first tests without any sort of antenna, I continued to apply this method but now with the two different antennas that are provided on the development kit.

The largest antenna working on 2.4Ghz

I'm mainly testing this one because it's range is the same as a WiFi, although I have to be aware that this may take a toll on our battery consumption.

Dev Kit working on AAA batteries

My next task is to try and see if it's possible to have a five year working battery with just two AAA sized ones. Although I'm pretty sure the values will be far from that goal I have to show them in theory.

I will also conduct range tests during this week. The results will be posted as soon as I get them.

Until next time!

Hello world!
I'm Francisco, and this is my first post here.
My field of study is mechatronics, and i am working at Caterpillar - Monkstown.
So, what i do every day is just fix anything broken in the factory. I'm with the maintenance crew.
A new machine is being put together, as you can see below.

Mazak CNC Machine

Tool carrier for the new CNC machine Mazak

First two weeks of work

This is a laser cutting machine and is function basically it`s to cut metal sheets with the desired shape to the generators and all the pieces.
The second machine it`s to carry the metal sheets to the laser machine.


"Selfie" at work

Because selfies at work are something else.

My Workplace

In this space we fix all the broken machines and also it´s also where we built some new pieces.

My impressions, experience and work on my first two weeks of internship

After two weeks of being fully on duty, all I can say is that I’m very impressed with the way all my experience has been shaping up until now.

I have been working on the Northern Ireland Technology Center.

Although I was not authorized to take pictures from the machinery inside for obvious reasons, I have been working on a small project that possesses a wireless device called Zigbee. It’s very similar to the regular Bluetooth, but in reality this one applies to a more industrial reality.

My work consists on studying if using the Zigbee as a humidity and temperature sensor as well as a transmitter is reliable.

I started working on a way to capture and transmit that date immediately, obviously this experience didn't show me what I was first expecting, since there was too much networking manipulation in it, so we decided to resort to a external LCD display.

This picture above shows my first contact with the Telegesis Terminal, it was my first successful attempt at making a network connection with a nod while establishing a sink as well.

Despite not being able to take pictures from the vast machinery I could take some from my workplace. I have a personal computer and all the documentation available to take home and study if necessary. 

Bellow there's a sample of my command list and the dossier that I have been studying on CE Marketing and used Directives to certify Electric and Electronical Devices on the UE and certifications on how to deal with the waste that this kind of material produces.

Throughout this week I will be doing some studies on battery consumption with a Zigbee module and its devboard working. After this I will then see what kind of batteries can be of use considering the costs to produce the maximum efficiency on signal range and life battery. Gladly I’m very comfortable with this kind of work since it uses the knowledge that I have acquired on my course at my vocational school.

I'm currently at home working due to the two day holiday, Orangeman Day. I will give an update on my work at the end of this week!

Primeira Semana de Trabalho

Passado a primeira semana de trabalho na Caterpillar, consegui perceber o que significa realmente a palavra trabalho, e mais importante a responsabilidade que a palavra envolve.

A minha semana começou com uma indução de regras de segurança e todos os cuidados que temos que ter quando trabalhamos numa fábrica, pois algo que a Caterpillar valoriza mais que outra coisa é a segurança dos seus trabalhadores.

Durante a semana toda estive integrado com a equipa de manutenção da fábrica e fui nos primeiros dias acompanhando o que era feito e como era feito a manutenção dos vários esquipamentos da fábrica desde máquinas de corte a laser, a uma rede de distribuição de placas de metal, a pequenos equipamentos eletrónicos.

Mais para o fim da semana acompanhei um dos trabalhadores, que é o que está responsável por mim, e fizemos uma manutenção preventiva de quase todas as máquinas da fábrica e a manutenção corretiva de alguns pequenos problemas existentes nalguns equipamentos.

O meu supervisor em princípio também me irá dar um pequeno projeto que terá a duração do tempo restante de estágio que em princípio irá consistir num pequeno painel de controlo.

Por fim tenho a dizer que toda a equipa de manutenção da fábrica me recebeu de braços abertos e mesmo toda a equipa da fábrica me recebeu como um membro da sua equipa fazendo com que a minha integração na fábrica tenha sido bastante facilitada desse modo.

Estou bastante entusiasmado e satisfeito com o que estou a fazer e empolgado com o resto de estágio na Caterpillar.

Vou dando notícias e até breve.

Yesterday we went to the market to finally buy some local and fresh products. We purchased some meet, fruit. We ended up having lunch there eating the typical Irish burger.