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Welcome back to The Automation Podcast, the world's

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number one industrial automation product and technology show.

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Thanks to you,

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our audience of highly skilled automation professionals. Thank

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you for being a member of our audience,

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and thank you for tuning back in this

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week. Now for those new to the show,

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my name is Sean Tierney from Insights and

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Automation. And each week, I invite a new

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vendor or customer or user on the show

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to talk about products, technologies, and solutions.

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And if there's any graphics, this is more

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of an interview style recording today, but if

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there's any graphics, we'll we would always call

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those out for those of you who listen

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because we know,

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over a quarter of you, even on YouTube,

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listen to the show and not watch it.

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And so, we we appreciate you all, whether

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you're listening or watching. And with that said,

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I do wanna thank our sponsor for this

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episode, the automationschool.com.

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They are making this production of this episode

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possible. So if you need PLC, HMI, or

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SCADA training, please visit the automationschool.com.

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If you have any questions about the training

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there, just reach out to me because I'm

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the instructor.

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So with that said, today, we have Drew

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on the show. I'm looking forward to talking

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to him about a

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wide variety of topics. But because it's Drew's

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first time on the show, I'm gonna ask

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him. Drew, if you don't mind, could you

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please introduce yourself to our audience?

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Sure. I am Drew Allen. I'm the CEO

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of Grace Technologies. I took over in January

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2021.

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Our history,

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kind of family history,

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is quite lengthy in the automation space. My

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grandpa was a regional sales manager for Allen

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Bradley in the seventies and eighties for,

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Los Angeles.

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My dad is a former Rockwell guy as

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well. I did not follow in those footsteps.

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But,

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I started going to China with my dad,

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at 13,

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which gave me kind of a really interesting

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viewpoint

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of how products get made.

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And, after living overseas for a while after

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college, I ended up kinda moving back to

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Grace, took over a lot of, sales roles

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and responsibilities, and then kind of culminating in,

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taking over CEO in January 2021.

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Well, congratulations

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on that. Anybody who's a a regular viewer

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of the channel knows that over the last

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twelve years, we've covered Grace, especially on the

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news shows, some of their technologies that they've

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come out with over the years.

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And, you you guys all know me being

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a former,

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Rocco Automation,

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certified specialist.

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I was, working for distributors. I was,

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you know, you know, came across Grace quite

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a bit, and they're always at all the

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big shows as well.

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So if anybody's going to any of the

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upcoming shows where Rocco will be at, you'll

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probably see Grace there. But in any case,

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Drew, I wanna thank you for coming on.

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And that that is an interesting background. I

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know we have a lot of things we

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wanna talk about today.

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Before we jump into that, though, could you

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give the audience the, website for your company?

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You can find us a couple different URLs,

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but, main one would be www.graceport.com.

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Okay. Great. That's the one I always remember,

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but, that's actually not the name of the

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company. But I think a lot of us

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came to know your company through those bulkhead

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connectors, which are so user friendly. If you

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need an Ethernet jack, you don't wanna open

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up the enclosure, and you're right there with

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it. And but you guys do so much

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more than that.

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In any case, I did wanna start the

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conversation off talking about

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safety by design, and you guys have so

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many different products that deal with safety. Right?

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So, seeing, you know, is the panel hot

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or cold, right, just from the outside, just

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looking at the outside of the panel. You

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know, we have we don't even have to

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open up the panel, of course, if we

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have the bulkhead connectors and so on. But

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can you what can you tell us about

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safety,

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by design here in the twenty twenties?

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So I got three different threads I wanna

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pull on. Okay. So so first,

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safety by design really came

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came to be,

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as part of NFPA 70 e, I think,

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about ten years ago.

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In one of probably the the 2013

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or 2010 revision.

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And they started to put a safety by

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design section into that 70 e document. And

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that was really the first time of, like,

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thinking,

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maybe we can actually make equipment,

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safer for the electrical worker.

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And, you know, when we kinda saw that,

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it also played into,

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it it played in with this thing called

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the risk control hierarchy.

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And so the risk control hierarchy, you know,

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is this pyramid. Right? And at the top

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of the pyramid, you can eliminate the risk.

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The second is kinda substituted a lower risk.

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Third would be engineering controls.

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Fourth would be admin controls. And then fifth

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is PPE. Now oftentimes in industrial facility, what

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we jump to first

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to protect the electrical worker or the technician

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is we jump to PPE as really the

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first line of defense where 70 e really

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says you should start at the top of

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that pyramid and

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reduce and eliminate the risk as really the

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the the top kind of order of control.

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And that actually lines up with a lot

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of our experience in the industrial field and

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kinda gets into a little bit of the

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genesis story of Grace.

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So Grace actually started off as a Grace,

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technology started off as Grace Engineering and Integration.

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And we were a Rockwell system integrator,

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and we were working on a friction friction

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fit weld or retrofit for John Deere.

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And the,

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guy at John Deere was tired of reaching

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his arm around 480

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volt bus bar in order to access the

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Slick 500.

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And he goes, can you just, like, create,

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like, a port on the outside of the

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panel that I can plug my laptop into

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to be able to access the PLC?

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And my dad has this pretty stringent no

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nose policy.

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And he's just one of these guys who

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will always figure it out.

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And, and my dad's like,

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sure. We'll figure it out. So he goes

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ahead, creates a prototype,

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and delivers the prototype. And then two weeks

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later,

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the customer calls up and goes, hey. Can

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I get another one of those gray sports?

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And, and that was kind of, like, the

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start of the product line. And so we

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actually kinda started doing safety by design

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without,

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you know, without a sort of theoretical

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NFPA 70 e backbone because 70 was not

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a thing back in '93.

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I I think maybe it was technically a

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thing, but no one knew about it. It

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NFPA 70 e actually started as an offshoot

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of the I triple E, PCIC committee.

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PCIC being the petrochemical

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industry conference.

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And DuPont had a, DuPont and some of

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the other petrochem companies had a big hand

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in kind of starting to assess this arc

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flash risk.

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And so when we look at a control

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panel from a electrical safety perspective, we're typically

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looking at two specific risks. We're talking about

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shock hazard as well as arc flash.

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You know, if,

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most people I talk with have had some

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sort of exposure to shock,

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a lot of people still,

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are surprised to hear about arc flash.

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Now people

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who have experienced arc flash, they're

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evangelists for keeping people safe.

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And so

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we, you know, at Grace, we really have

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tried to come up with solutions that keep

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people outside of that cabinet.

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If you or somebody you know needs training

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on CompactLogics,

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ControlLogics,

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or really virtually any Allen Bradley

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programmable controller released over the last, say, forty

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years, then I wanna share with you what

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I'm working on right now for release in

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early twenty twenty six. And, you know, if

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you've been following me, you probably know I

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release a new course every year. But for

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2026,

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I decided that I was gonna refilm all

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of my Ellen Bradley PLC courses and release

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two new courses on the Legacy PLC five

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and slick 500. And this all came about

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as I'm here in my physical training room

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in the Berkshires

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working on new labs for 2026 for the

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in person courses. I'm like, this is a

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perfect time to update all my Allen Bradley

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online courses.

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So if you are already enrolled in one

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of my level one and two or what

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I call my extended courses, just know that

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you're gonna get these new courses completely free

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of charge. And if you ever bought a

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mega bundle or ultimate bundle, that's what comes

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in those courses are the extended edition. So

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you're gonna get the new courses completely free.

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And if you're a new student

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who comes in and buy the new course,

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you're gonna get the old one as well.

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And I'm doing this for those people who

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maybe they're servicing old control logic systems with

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control net, and they're using, like, version 20

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of the software. Well, it looks a lot

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different and operates a lot different than what

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version 31 and above does. Right? So in

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any case, I do wanna share that with

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you. And, again, if you know anybody looking

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for either in person training or online training,

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please send them my way. And with that,

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let me get you right back into this

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week's episode of the automation podcast.

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In

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ULNEMA

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land,

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a big difference is between ULNEMA

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and IEC

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is where really where the

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the safety protection is. Right? And so in

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The US and in Canada, we consider the

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enclosure

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kind of the the main mechanism for ingress.

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Whereas in Europe, the device itself, so like

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a contactor itself, is, you know, is designed

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to actually have the ingress.

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You know, there's there's upsides and downsides with

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kind of both approaches,

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But,

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ultimately,

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we we figured we're gonna try to keep

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people outside of the cabinet, as much as

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we can and and keep people away from

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voltage.

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And that was really how we started.

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So we, you know, our first product line

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was Graceport. And what we figured out very

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quickly was we would create a standard number

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of SKUs,

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and

271
00:09:53,554 --> 00:09:55,554
then we would get asked for another SKU,

272
00:09:55,554 --> 00:09:56,914
and then we get asked for another SKU.

273
00:09:56,914 --> 00:09:59,975
Well, today, we're up to, like, almost 20,000

274
00:10:00,194 --> 00:10:02,294
unique combinations that we've created,

275
00:10:03,154 --> 00:10:06,754
and we just really innovated, and we can

276
00:10:06,754 --> 00:10:07,679
build and ship,

277
00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:11,379
a brand new Graysport that we've never created

278
00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:13,620
before in two to three days.

279
00:10:14,559 --> 00:10:16,399
And, you know, we just have really, really

280
00:10:16,399 --> 00:10:18,339
fast lead times, so we found that engineers

281
00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:21,514
really want what they want very quickly. Yeah.

282
00:10:21,715 --> 00:10:23,315
And so we just wanna make we wanna

283
00:10:23,315 --> 00:10:25,075
be super easy to do business with. Just

284
00:10:25,075 --> 00:10:26,674
configure what you want. We'll build it for

285
00:10:26,674 --> 00:10:28,754
you. We'll ship it out, as fast as

286
00:10:28,754 --> 00:10:30,914
possible. And that was really kind of our

287
00:10:30,914 --> 00:10:32,754
our claim to fame and our initial product

288
00:10:32,754 --> 00:10:33,254
line.

289
00:10:33,570 --> 00:10:35,509
And so you've got this kind of convenience

290
00:10:35,649 --> 00:10:37,570
and safety play. Right? The other thing is

291
00:10:37,570 --> 00:10:38,070
is

292
00:10:38,529 --> 00:10:41,250
if you're a engineer, you don't necessarily have

293
00:10:41,250 --> 00:10:43,170
to have an electrician standing by because the

294
00:10:43,170 --> 00:10:45,889
door is not open. Whereas off you know,

295
00:10:45,889 --> 00:10:48,605
so your payback period on a Graceport is

296
00:10:48,605 --> 00:10:50,384
pretty dramatic and extreme.

297
00:10:51,164 --> 00:10:53,004
Imagine you have an eight hour kind of

298
00:10:53,004 --> 00:10:54,784
troubleshooting or programming session,

299
00:10:55,644 --> 00:10:57,404
and now you're able to do it with

300
00:10:57,404 --> 00:10:59,725
one guy instead of, well, one guy plus

301
00:10:59,725 --> 00:11:02,389
a electrician standing by. Not really I mean,

302
00:11:02,389 --> 00:11:04,070
I love electricians, but you're not adding a

303
00:11:04,070 --> 00:11:04,809
lot of value,

304
00:11:05,190 --> 00:11:06,970
at that at that point of the process.

305
00:11:07,509 --> 00:11:09,210
So that's kind of the grace part.

306
00:11:10,789 --> 00:11:12,950
Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. No. I was

307
00:11:12,950 --> 00:11:15,029
just gonna say, I think we all have

308
00:11:15,029 --> 00:11:17,184
seen them. I know if anybody out there,

309
00:11:17,184 --> 00:11:19,445
if you're using Rockwell, you've probably seen them.

310
00:11:19,585 --> 00:11:22,225
And, you know, as technology has changed over

311
00:11:22,225 --> 00:11:24,325
the years, you know, more USB

312
00:11:25,024 --> 00:11:27,665
c, more Ethernet. You know, you still need

313
00:11:27,665 --> 00:11:29,024
power in a lot of cases to plug

314
00:11:29,024 --> 00:11:31,210
your laptop into. But, you know, I think,

315
00:11:31,210 --> 00:11:33,870
you know, starting maybe twenty five years ago,

316
00:11:33,929 --> 00:11:35,850
you know, I started hearing as a PLC

317
00:11:35,850 --> 00:11:38,170
guy. I'm like, Arc Flash, what's that? But

318
00:11:38,170 --> 00:11:39,610
it's it's a serious thing, and I know

319
00:11:39,610 --> 00:11:41,309
my customers I've worked with implant.

320
00:11:41,769 --> 00:11:43,529
They all had to go through the training,

321
00:11:43,529 --> 00:11:45,450
and it was serious. And they all had

322
00:11:45,450 --> 00:11:47,634
to line up, and my sales guys were

323
00:11:47,634 --> 00:11:49,315
all over the PPE and trying to make

324
00:11:49,315 --> 00:11:50,674
sure they had the right vendors to sell

325
00:11:50,674 --> 00:11:52,514
the right products to the to the right

326
00:11:52,514 --> 00:11:54,355
end users. And it was it was a

327
00:11:54,355 --> 00:11:56,274
huge deal, and a lot of people actually

328
00:11:56,274 --> 00:11:58,934
changed their products. It's MCCs and VFDs.

329
00:11:59,315 --> 00:12:01,014
Those products actually changed

330
00:12:01,580 --> 00:12:04,299
to mitigate arc flash and to try to

331
00:12:04,299 --> 00:12:06,139
add layers in there to protect those who

332
00:12:06,139 --> 00:12:08,299
may open the door to the MCC. So

333
00:12:08,299 --> 00:12:10,139
there's a protective layer between them and the

334
00:12:10,139 --> 00:12:12,779
bus, and it just just really changed our

335
00:12:12,779 --> 00:12:14,615
world. And, you know, I think, you know,

336
00:12:14,615 --> 00:12:16,455
safety first. Right? But if you can do

337
00:12:16,455 --> 00:12:17,815
something where you don't have to get all

338
00:12:17,815 --> 00:12:20,695
your PPE on, right, and you can actually

339
00:12:20,695 --> 00:12:22,855
work on your control system, whether it's putting

340
00:12:22,855 --> 00:12:25,014
the controls in a separate cabinet or having

341
00:12:25,014 --> 00:12:26,455
other things, a lot of times you can't

342
00:12:26,455 --> 00:12:28,429
avoid that with a, you know, a high

343
00:12:28,429 --> 00:12:29,570
horsepower VFD.

344
00:12:30,670 --> 00:12:32,190
You cannot you can't put it in its

345
00:12:32,190 --> 00:12:34,190
own little small enclosure. It needs to be

346
00:12:34,190 --> 00:12:35,870
in that big enclosure with the, you know,

347
00:12:35,870 --> 00:12:38,269
the four eighty volt or whatever. And, there's

348
00:12:38,269 --> 00:12:40,075
a lot of current there that could that

349
00:12:40,075 --> 00:12:42,235
could, you know, in certain cases, cause problems.

350
00:12:42,235 --> 00:12:43,754
That's why I always love and I gotta

351
00:12:43,754 --> 00:12:45,674
say, I think it's Bernie and Les is

352
00:12:45,674 --> 00:12:46,654
the, cartoon,

353
00:12:46,955 --> 00:12:48,634
which I just love. If you guys have

354
00:12:48,634 --> 00:12:50,975
never seen that, you gotta go to graceboth.com.

355
00:12:51,115 --> 00:12:53,434
It's a great comic strip series that,

356
00:12:54,075 --> 00:12:56,179
that shows, like, kinda the old ways of

357
00:12:56,179 --> 00:12:58,019
doing things and the new ways and then

358
00:12:58,019 --> 00:12:59,940
the funny ways, which nobody would do it.

359
00:13:00,420 --> 00:13:02,019
Like, people standing on top of people and

360
00:13:02,019 --> 00:13:03,700
and silly things like that. Well, Sean, you

361
00:13:03,700 --> 00:13:05,299
wanna know you wanna know the genesis story

362
00:13:05,299 --> 00:13:07,559
of that? Oh, yeah. Please. Yeah. So,

363
00:13:08,975 --> 00:13:10,675
so we're on a family vacation,

364
00:13:11,455 --> 00:13:13,855
and, you know, the the company had kinda

365
00:13:13,855 --> 00:13:15,934
just started up and, you know, but at

366
00:13:15,934 --> 00:13:18,254
at the time, it was just being an

367
00:13:18,254 --> 00:13:20,815
entrepreneur. Right? It wasn't like startup go raise

368
00:13:20,815 --> 00:13:23,695
money in the nineties type of situation, right,

369
00:13:23,695 --> 00:13:24,835
especially in the Midwest.

370
00:13:25,509 --> 00:13:27,669
And, and so dad was having a hard

371
00:13:27,669 --> 00:13:31,129
time communicating what the Graceport did. Right? Like,

372
00:13:31,350 --> 00:13:33,450
it allows you to connect the piece PLC

373
00:13:33,509 --> 00:13:35,350
on the inside of the cabinet, like, through

374
00:13:35,350 --> 00:13:36,629
the outside of the cap like, it was

375
00:13:36,629 --> 00:13:38,169
a it was a hard thing to describe.

376
00:13:38,365 --> 00:13:39,485
And so he ended up picking up a

377
00:13:39,485 --> 00:13:41,665
comic, like, how to draw a comic.

378
00:13:42,125 --> 00:13:42,865
And so

379
00:13:43,165 --> 00:13:45,325
he ended up actually creating this, like, kind

380
00:13:45,325 --> 00:13:48,304
of this guy, like, on a operating table

381
00:13:48,764 --> 00:13:50,764
with, like, a port on his belly, you

382
00:13:50,764 --> 00:13:53,209
know, and, like, wires and, you know, and

383
00:13:53,209 --> 00:13:55,690
and there's a couple more revisions of that.

384
00:13:55,690 --> 00:13:57,149
That actually is relatively,

385
00:13:58,089 --> 00:13:58,589
good,

386
00:13:59,209 --> 00:14:01,449
you know, he's relatively good at drawing. I

387
00:14:01,529 --> 00:14:03,049
I've I've told this on a couple other

388
00:14:03,049 --> 00:14:04,329
podcasts as well, but my,

389
00:14:05,105 --> 00:14:06,485
my great great grand

390
00:14:06,865 --> 00:14:10,085
grand uncle on my dad's mother's mother's side

391
00:14:10,384 --> 00:14:12,945
was Samuel Finley Breeze Morse who invented the

392
00:14:12,945 --> 00:14:13,684
Morse code.

393
00:14:14,625 --> 00:14:16,705
And so everyone knows him for that, but

394
00:14:16,705 --> 00:14:18,545
he was also, like, quite an awesome artist.

395
00:14:18,545 --> 00:14:19,285
And so

396
00:14:19,620 --> 00:14:19,860
his,

397
00:14:20,500 --> 00:14:22,179
there's kind of, like, this thread of, like,

398
00:14:22,179 --> 00:14:24,440
art and design kind of in my family.

399
00:14:24,740 --> 00:14:26,340
And so dad got that gift. I did

400
00:14:26,340 --> 00:14:27,379
not get that gift.

401
00:14:27,940 --> 00:14:28,440
So,

402
00:14:28,899 --> 00:14:31,700
but, anyways, he kinda started this drawing thing,

403
00:14:31,700 --> 00:14:34,115
and he finally figured out, like, a really

404
00:14:34,115 --> 00:14:35,794
good cartoon. And so he ended up putting

405
00:14:35,794 --> 00:14:38,034
that up on his displays at automation fair.

406
00:14:38,034 --> 00:14:39,314
And so people would come up and say,

407
00:14:39,314 --> 00:14:40,194
well, what do you do? And he was

408
00:14:40,194 --> 00:14:41,975
just able to just point at the display.

409
00:14:42,034 --> 00:14:43,554
And that was really, like, one of the

410
00:14:43,554 --> 00:14:45,314
first big kind of, like, marketing things that

411
00:14:45,314 --> 00:14:46,834
we figured out was, like, how to communicate

412
00:14:46,834 --> 00:14:47,574
that message.

413
00:14:49,169 --> 00:14:50,769
But, yeah, we we have Bernie and Les.

414
00:14:50,769 --> 00:14:52,929
They're getting into trouble all the time, and,

415
00:14:53,169 --> 00:14:55,009
they're they're really fun. We have an entire

416
00:14:55,009 --> 00:14:57,570
Slack channel where everyone in the company kinda,

417
00:14:57,570 --> 00:14:59,649
like, submits ideas. So I would open that

418
00:14:59,649 --> 00:15:01,644
up to your listeners of, like, if you

419
00:15:01,644 --> 00:15:03,804
guys have ideas of what you think Bernie

420
00:15:03,804 --> 00:15:05,565
Lush should get in trouble with, like, give

421
00:15:05,565 --> 00:15:07,725
us give us some ideas, and hopefully, you

422
00:15:07,725 --> 00:15:09,024
can learn from their mistakes.

423
00:15:10,445 --> 00:15:11,964
Well and I think a lot of I

424
00:15:11,964 --> 00:15:13,664
think a lot of the episodes

425
00:15:14,110 --> 00:15:15,389
have to do with the and I'm gonna

426
00:15:15,389 --> 00:15:17,330
say this wrong, but PSEDs?

427
00:15:17,790 --> 00:15:19,870
Can you explain that a little bit? Yeah.

428
00:15:19,870 --> 00:15:20,370
PSEDs.

429
00:15:21,230 --> 00:15:23,570
So we start with the grace port. And

430
00:15:24,830 --> 00:15:28,350
for product businesses, the hardest kind of crossing

431
00:15:28,350 --> 00:15:29,009
the chasm

432
00:15:29,644 --> 00:15:31,725
is going from being a single product business

433
00:15:31,725 --> 00:15:32,945
to being a multiproduct

434
00:15:33,404 --> 00:15:36,445
kind of family business. Yeah. And we knew

435
00:15:36,445 --> 00:15:38,764
that there was additional ways for that we

436
00:15:38,764 --> 00:15:41,565
needed to protect workers. And and so we

437
00:15:41,565 --> 00:15:43,965
we kind of started doing some research, and

438
00:15:43,965 --> 00:15:46,579
we ended up figuring out that, hey. We

439
00:15:46,579 --> 00:15:48,980
need to alert people that voltage is really

440
00:15:48,980 --> 00:15:51,159
inside of this cabinet. And so,

441
00:15:51,699 --> 00:15:54,259
about fifteen years ago, maybe a little bit

442
00:15:54,259 --> 00:15:54,759
longer,

443
00:15:55,139 --> 00:15:57,299
we ended up, releasing the r three w,

444
00:15:57,299 --> 00:15:59,059
which is our voltage indicator. And that was

445
00:15:59,059 --> 00:16:01,735
our first kind of, you know, foray into,

446
00:16:02,514 --> 00:16:04,134
the voltage indication space.

447
00:16:04,915 --> 00:16:06,915
And a lot of, a lot of our

448
00:16:06,915 --> 00:16:09,975
growth has now come from that PESD business.

449
00:16:10,754 --> 00:16:11,254
And,

450
00:16:11,795 --> 00:16:13,475
we've come up with a lot of different

451
00:16:13,475 --> 00:16:13,975
variations.

452
00:16:14,460 --> 00:16:17,040
There's really three different flavors of products.

453
00:16:17,420 --> 00:16:19,740
We have our voltage indicators, which are really

454
00:16:19,740 --> 00:16:20,879
for voltage presence.

455
00:16:22,220 --> 00:16:25,179
That addresses the need for the mechanical worker

456
00:16:25,179 --> 00:16:26,800
in addition to the bump,

457
00:16:27,204 --> 00:16:29,845
try, or jog test, whatever your terminology is

458
00:16:29,845 --> 00:16:31,225
that you guys use in your facility.

459
00:16:32,164 --> 00:16:34,245
Everyone knows I mean, you're you're a PLC

460
00:16:34,245 --> 00:16:35,384
guy. Right? So,

461
00:16:36,245 --> 00:16:38,504
when you are pressing a green push button,

462
00:16:39,204 --> 00:16:39,704
or

463
00:16:40,279 --> 00:16:42,200
a green button on an HMI screen, you

464
00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:44,279
don't exactly know what you're testing. If there's

465
00:16:44,279 --> 00:16:45,740
a permissive in the system,

466
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:48,399
maybe there's an interlock that's open, you really

467
00:16:48,519 --> 00:16:49,960
you just you don't have a you don't

468
00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:51,639
have a good sense of of what you're

469
00:16:51,639 --> 00:16:54,040
testing, but OSHA does require you to do

470
00:16:54,040 --> 00:16:56,335
that bump test, that try test. It's just

471
00:16:56,335 --> 00:16:57,554
no one would trust it.

472
00:16:58,414 --> 00:17:00,575
And that was really the initial kind of

473
00:17:00,575 --> 00:17:03,394
foray was, let's provide additional verification

474
00:17:04,015 --> 00:17:06,654
for the worker that, hey. There's power present

475
00:17:06,654 --> 00:17:09,930
or not there for mechanical lockout, tagout means.

476
00:17:10,650 --> 00:17:11,789
And then we started,

477
00:17:13,130 --> 00:17:15,930
getting how can we do full electrical lockout

478
00:17:15,930 --> 00:17:18,490
takeout without opening up the panel door? Now

479
00:17:18,490 --> 00:17:20,890
when I say electrical lockout takeout versus mechanical

480
00:17:20,890 --> 00:17:24,194
lockout takeout, let me define those. Mechanical first

481
00:17:24,194 --> 00:17:25,875
of all, there's a lot of different lockout

482
00:17:25,875 --> 00:17:26,375
takeouts.

483
00:17:26,674 --> 00:17:28,214
You've got mechanical, electrical,

484
00:17:28,515 --> 00:17:30,375
thermal, gravitational, hydraulic,

485
00:17:30,674 --> 00:17:31,174
pneumatic.

486
00:17:31,795 --> 00:17:34,674
There's, I think, nuclear lockout takeout actually, as

487
00:17:34,674 --> 00:17:36,835
well. So there's a lot of different types

488
00:17:36,835 --> 00:17:37,974
of lockout takeout.

489
00:17:38,410 --> 00:17:40,349
Mechanical lockout tagout is really

490
00:17:40,650 --> 00:17:42,829
my hands are not gonna come in contact

491
00:17:42,890 --> 00:17:44,890
or I'm not gonna enter the arc flash

492
00:17:44,890 --> 00:17:45,710
approach boundary

493
00:17:46,250 --> 00:17:48,970
of that piece of, you know, electrical equipment.

494
00:17:48,970 --> 00:17:50,809
So I'm doing mainly mechanical work. Maybe I'm

495
00:17:50,809 --> 00:17:53,049
changing out a bearing or something like that

496
00:17:53,049 --> 00:17:54,994
or clearing a jam in a

497
00:17:55,455 --> 00:17:57,535
machine. For electrical lockout tagout, it means I'm

498
00:17:57,535 --> 00:18:00,575
entering into the arc flash approach boundary of

499
00:18:00,575 --> 00:18:01,634
the electrical equipment.

500
00:18:02,494 --> 00:18:03,234
I'm also,

501
00:18:03,695 --> 00:18:06,035
likely gonna be putting my hands on conductors.

502
00:18:06,950 --> 00:18:08,730
And and that really requires,

503
00:18:09,750 --> 00:18:12,309
that re that kinda jumps over from really

504
00:18:12,309 --> 00:18:15,049
an OSHA standard to NFPA 70 e.

505
00:18:15,430 --> 00:18:18,549
And 70 e article one twenty requires a

506
00:18:18,549 --> 00:18:21,130
live dead live check. And so we figured,

507
00:18:22,464 --> 00:18:24,144
how can we do this? And we ended

508
00:18:24,144 --> 00:18:25,924
up partnering with a company called Syntos.

509
00:18:26,544 --> 00:18:28,085
Little known fact about Syntos.

510
00:18:29,265 --> 00:18:30,704
I believe this is still true, though. I

511
00:18:30,704 --> 00:18:32,304
think Amazon's giving them a little bit of

512
00:18:32,304 --> 00:18:33,359
a run for their money.

513
00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:36,400
Cintas has the fourth largest fleet on the

514
00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:38,099
road. They're the world's

515
00:18:38,400 --> 00:18:39,140
the largest,

516
00:18:39,519 --> 00:18:40,019
industrial,

517
00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:42,500
laundry business in the country.

518
00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:43,940
And,

519
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:45,859
unfortunately, they had a

520
00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:47,700
pretty serious fatality,

521
00:18:48,585 --> 00:18:49,804
in one of their facilities,

522
00:18:50,664 --> 00:18:51,164
about

523
00:18:51,544 --> 00:18:54,664
fifteen years ago. That really changed the way

524
00:18:54,664 --> 00:18:55,644
that they started,

525
00:18:56,744 --> 00:18:59,065
that really changed their culture of safety in

526
00:18:59,065 --> 00:18:59,544
their,

527
00:18:59,865 --> 00:19:01,005
across their company.

528
00:19:02,150 --> 00:19:04,390
And it was due to a lockout takeout

529
00:19:04,390 --> 00:19:04,890
mistake.

530
00:19:05,670 --> 00:19:07,049
And so they decided

531
00:19:08,150 --> 00:19:08,809
they decided

532
00:19:09,190 --> 00:19:11,509
we gotta get serious here. And so they

533
00:19:11,509 --> 00:19:13,109
reached out to us, and we actually ended

534
00:19:13,109 --> 00:19:14,089
up co developing

535
00:19:15,444 --> 00:19:17,204
a voltage indicator kind of on the left

536
00:19:17,204 --> 00:19:18,724
side. And on the right side, we came

537
00:19:18,724 --> 00:19:20,325
up with safe test points that allowed them

538
00:19:20,325 --> 00:19:21,625
to do a fully metered,

539
00:19:22,244 --> 00:19:23,784
test outside of the cabinet.

540
00:19:24,244 --> 00:19:26,164
And then that kind of ended up morphing

541
00:19:26,164 --> 00:19:28,679
into our safe test point offering. What's cool

542
00:19:28,679 --> 00:19:30,440
there is we put a 102 k ohm

543
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:32,279
impedance on the back end of that circuit.

544
00:19:32,279 --> 00:19:33,899
So at 480 volts,

545
00:19:34,679 --> 00:19:37,639
you're limited to about 2.3 milliamps of max

546
00:19:37,639 --> 00:19:38,619
available current,

547
00:19:39,079 --> 00:19:41,319
which is below OSHA's definition of a shock

548
00:19:41,319 --> 00:19:43,000
hazard as well as you're below any sort

549
00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:44,554
of arc flash hazard.

550
00:19:45,014 --> 00:19:47,835
And then that really shifted into our CheckVault

551
00:19:47,974 --> 00:19:48,794
product line.

552
00:19:49,414 --> 00:19:51,434
And that CheckVault was really a combination

553
00:19:51,734 --> 00:19:52,234
of,

554
00:19:53,095 --> 00:19:55,754
the voltage indicator and the test points,

555
00:19:56,099 --> 00:19:57,539
kind of as a two in one instead

556
00:19:57,539 --> 00:19:59,319
of having two separate units.

557
00:20:00,179 --> 00:20:02,759
And that product has just, you know,

558
00:20:03,779 --> 00:20:06,500
gone, you know, thermonuclear. I mean, it's been

559
00:20:06,500 --> 00:20:08,119
super, super successful product.

560
00:20:08,505 --> 00:20:10,984
And, you know, what's incredible to us as

561
00:20:10,984 --> 00:20:12,605
the company building that product,

562
00:20:13,224 --> 00:20:15,144
sales are nice, but, like, we know that

563
00:20:15,144 --> 00:20:16,445
every one of those installed

564
00:20:16,984 --> 00:20:18,445
is keeping someone safe.

565
00:20:19,144 --> 00:20:19,305
And,

566
00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:23,160
that's super exciting. And I know for our

567
00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:24,380
team and for myself,

568
00:20:24,920 --> 00:20:26,759
there's a lot of joy and pleasure that

569
00:20:26,759 --> 00:20:27,900
kinda comes from

570
00:20:28,359 --> 00:20:31,240
knowing that, hey. We are really making, you

571
00:20:31,240 --> 00:20:33,160
you know, we're really making an impact in

572
00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:36,384
the lives of these electrical workers across these

573
00:20:36,384 --> 00:20:38,965
facilities that literally build our world.

574
00:20:39,424 --> 00:20:41,744
Right? I think oftentimes, we we think about

575
00:20:41,744 --> 00:20:44,384
just the technology, but, like, these people who

576
00:20:44,545 --> 00:20:46,865
these companies we're working with are the world's

577
00:20:46,865 --> 00:20:50,009
most important companies. And, like, our lives as

578
00:20:50,809 --> 00:20:53,849
humans would be vastly, vastly different without these

579
00:20:53,849 --> 00:20:55,930
companies in them. I mean, you know, whether

580
00:20:55,930 --> 00:20:58,410
it's it's companies like Nestle or Procter and

581
00:20:58,410 --> 00:20:59,710
Gamble or Yeah.

582
00:21:00,329 --> 00:21:02,115
The automotives. I mean, it's just

583
00:21:02,755 --> 00:21:05,234
Petrochem, you know, tire and I mean, just

584
00:21:05,234 --> 00:21:07,154
across the board, our lives just would not

585
00:21:07,154 --> 00:21:08,595
be the same without them, and so we're

586
00:21:08,595 --> 00:21:10,134
excited to be a part of that,

587
00:21:10,835 --> 00:21:13,474
that journey. What's you know, it's very easy

588
00:21:13,474 --> 00:21:15,575
to install typical install locations.

589
00:21:16,759 --> 00:21:18,700
It's a 30 millimeter push button knockout.

590
00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:21,079
Oftentimes, it's gonna go on the load side

591
00:21:21,079 --> 00:21:22,140
of an LV,

592
00:21:22,599 --> 00:21:24,140
piece of switchgear, LVMCCs,

593
00:21:24,679 --> 00:21:27,399
drive cabinets, as well as control cabinets. And

594
00:21:27,399 --> 00:21:28,839
so we have a lot of people who

595
00:21:28,839 --> 00:21:30,359
put one on the line side, one on

596
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:32,355
the load side, but that really depends on

597
00:21:32,355 --> 00:21:34,355
your lockout takeout procedure, where you're doing the

598
00:21:34,355 --> 00:21:36,775
lockout takeout procedure, where you're requiring verification.

599
00:21:37,955 --> 00:21:39,555
Yeah. I think we should probably, for the

600
00:21:39,555 --> 00:21:42,115
audio audience, this device, the check volt, is

601
00:21:42,115 --> 00:21:43,335
not just indication.

602
00:21:44,115 --> 00:21:46,515
Right? You actually have test points there where

603
00:21:46,515 --> 00:21:47,130
you can

604
00:21:47,529 --> 00:21:49,289
say, well, I wanna be sure that the

605
00:21:49,369 --> 00:21:51,609
there's no voltage there. Is that correct? Yeah.

606
00:21:51,609 --> 00:21:53,309
Correct. It it the the

607
00:21:53,690 --> 00:21:55,930
voltage indication actually kind of halos around the

608
00:21:55,930 --> 00:21:58,089
test point, which is pretty cool, which is

609
00:21:58,089 --> 00:22:00,410
kind of a cool look. Everyone loves flashing

610
00:22:00,410 --> 00:22:02,054
lights, and so this one, you have to,

611
00:22:02,054 --> 00:22:03,934
like, lit up test points, which is really

612
00:22:03,934 --> 00:22:04,434
fun.

613
00:22:04,894 --> 00:22:07,054
Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, the seventy e

614
00:22:07,054 --> 00:22:09,054
committee has been, they they put this in

615
00:22:09,054 --> 00:22:09,375
their,

616
00:22:09,934 --> 00:22:10,994
annex o,

617
00:22:11,375 --> 00:22:13,795
which is their safety by design kind of,

618
00:22:15,054 --> 00:22:15,795
best practices.

619
00:22:16,759 --> 00:22:18,519
So it's been great to get a lot

620
00:22:18,519 --> 00:22:20,279
of support from the electrical safety community on

621
00:22:20,279 --> 00:22:21,419
this on this unit.

622
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:23,880
If you or somebody you know needs hands

623
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:25,880
on training with Rockwell or Siemens PLCs, I

624
00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:28,440
want you to consider the automation school. Not

625
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:30,045
only are you gonna find that we're less

626
00:22:30,125 --> 00:22:32,305
expensive than sending your people to the factory,

627
00:22:32,445 --> 00:22:34,625
we're gonna be able to cover more content

628
00:22:34,765 --> 00:22:35,265
quicker.

629
00:22:35,725 --> 00:22:38,205
And we can even teach your students on

630
00:22:38,205 --> 00:22:40,305
both Rockwell and Siemens

631
00:22:40,605 --> 00:22:42,945
if you wanna do a multi day engagement.

632
00:22:43,470 --> 00:22:45,470
Now you'll find all the information about my

633
00:22:45,470 --> 00:22:49,250
hands on training over at theautomationschool.com/live.

634
00:22:49,789 --> 00:22:51,069
And if you have any questions, I wanna

635
00:22:51,069 --> 00:22:52,750
encourage you to reach out to me. But

636
00:22:52,750 --> 00:22:54,429
just keep in mind that what we can

637
00:22:54,429 --> 00:22:56,509
do here is typically more than you'll find

638
00:22:56,509 --> 00:22:58,529
other places because we have more equipment.

639
00:22:58,835 --> 00:23:00,835
You know, anybody could put APLCs in a

640
00:23:00,835 --> 00:23:02,994
room, put APCs in a room, and say,

641
00:23:02,994 --> 00:23:04,914
here you go. Here's a lab book. What

642
00:23:04,914 --> 00:23:06,914
we can do is share, well, my thirty

643
00:23:06,914 --> 00:23:09,634
five years experience using this stuff, but, also,

644
00:23:09,634 --> 00:23:12,434
I have dozens of products from third parties

645
00:23:12,434 --> 00:23:14,369
we can bring in and integrate in addition

646
00:23:14,369 --> 00:23:16,450
to all the vendors I have shown you

647
00:23:16,450 --> 00:23:18,690
on the YouTube channel and on the automation

648
00:23:18,690 --> 00:23:19,750
blog over the years.

649
00:23:20,049 --> 00:23:22,369
So, again, if you want to do hands

650
00:23:22,369 --> 00:23:23,589
on training affordably

651
00:23:24,049 --> 00:23:26,609
and you need quality instructor, please consider sending

652
00:23:26,609 --> 00:23:28,795
your students to me. And, for all the

653
00:23:28,795 --> 00:23:31,035
information and to get in contact with me,

654
00:23:31,035 --> 00:23:33,295
please visit the automationschool.com

655
00:23:33,515 --> 00:23:36,235
forward slash live. And with that, let's go

656
00:23:36,235 --> 00:23:38,414
back to this week's episode of the automation

657
00:23:38,475 --> 00:23:38,975
podcast.

658
00:23:39,674 --> 00:23:41,515
Yeah. Yeah. We've, we covered it quite a

659
00:23:41,515 --> 00:23:42,539
bit over the years.

660
00:23:43,100 --> 00:23:44,700
One of the things that I think a

661
00:23:44,700 --> 00:23:46,380
lot of us run into is the fact

662
00:23:46,380 --> 00:23:48,380
that, you know, my wife is, you know,

663
00:23:48,380 --> 00:23:49,200
as a principal

664
00:23:49,580 --> 00:23:51,900
is is guilty of this as well is

665
00:23:51,900 --> 00:23:53,980
that a lot of people don't realize where

666
00:23:53,980 --> 00:23:54,480
manufacturing

667
00:23:55,259 --> 00:23:55,759
happens.

668
00:23:56,539 --> 00:23:58,355
So my wife, the other day, she was

669
00:23:58,355 --> 00:24:00,115
frustrated. This is probably a year ago. She's

670
00:24:00,115 --> 00:24:02,194
like, everything's made overseas. And I'm like, what

671
00:24:02,194 --> 00:24:04,115
are you talking about? We just passed three

672
00:24:04,115 --> 00:24:07,315
companies that make stuff that literally produce products,

673
00:24:07,315 --> 00:24:09,075
and and it's you know, most of them

674
00:24:09,075 --> 00:24:11,569
are subcomponents to a bigger product. But I'm

675
00:24:11,569 --> 00:24:12,869
like, there are manufacturers

676
00:24:13,250 --> 00:24:16,130
all around you. There are massive bakeries locate

677
00:24:16,210 --> 00:24:18,289
located in the middle of towns, in the

678
00:24:18,289 --> 00:24:21,410
middle of, you know, residential districts, in the

679
00:24:21,410 --> 00:24:23,089
middle of Albany, New York where you would

680
00:24:23,089 --> 00:24:25,724
never expect one to be. There are injective

681
00:24:25,944 --> 00:24:28,585
molding machines. There are machine shops. There everywhere

682
00:24:28,585 --> 00:24:30,845
you look, you're probably passing a manufacturer

683
00:24:31,224 --> 00:24:32,904
and not even knowing it. It just looks

684
00:24:32,904 --> 00:24:35,944
like a building with no windows. Right? And

685
00:24:35,944 --> 00:24:38,184
so, they are extremely important. I

686
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:40,640
you know, whether it's medical devices or the

687
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:42,820
paper we use or, you know,

688
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:44,640
you know, a lot of testing goes into

689
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:46,320
those components that go into our cars. Right?

690
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:48,080
Because they're gonna last, you know, forty, fifty

691
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:50,240
years. Even the little, you know, window up,

692
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:52,580
down switches, those has to be tested, retested,

693
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:55,555
and engineered so they last a lifetime. So,

694
00:24:56,095 --> 00:24:58,015
and and if any of the audience out

695
00:24:58,015 --> 00:24:59,615
there, you guys have stories you wanna share

696
00:24:59,615 --> 00:25:01,535
as well, please share them. But there is

697
00:25:01,535 --> 00:25:04,255
manufacturing. I remember somebody says there's no chip

698
00:25:04,255 --> 00:25:04,755
manufacturing

699
00:25:05,295 --> 00:25:07,215
in The US, not potato chips, which I

700
00:25:07,215 --> 00:25:09,250
do love, and there's plenty of that. But,

701
00:25:09,250 --> 00:25:11,490
you know, computer chips, and I'm like, I've

702
00:25:11,490 --> 00:25:13,429
been to Intel. I've been to GlobalFoundries.

703
00:25:13,809 --> 00:25:15,750
I've been to all these different fabs. Micron.

704
00:25:15,809 --> 00:25:17,809
We Yeah. Yeah. We have the nano, the

705
00:25:17,809 --> 00:25:20,130
nano college right here in Albany, just an

706
00:25:20,130 --> 00:25:22,804
hour away. It's like, we have a huge

707
00:25:22,944 --> 00:25:24,565
fabs here in The US.

708
00:25:24,944 --> 00:25:27,424
And, and, you know, so, you know, maybe

709
00:25:27,424 --> 00:25:29,184
the mass market a lot of the mass

710
00:25:29,184 --> 00:25:30,724
market stuff may not be here

711
00:25:31,265 --> 00:25:32,944
right now. Maybe it'll come back. I don't

712
00:25:32,944 --> 00:25:34,720
know. But, you know, all of the high

713
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:36,160
end stuff, a lot of the high end

714
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,240
stuff is made here locally and and even

715
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:39,599
some of the not high end stuff. I

716
00:25:39,679 --> 00:25:41,440
I've walked into plants that were just making

717
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:43,619
plastic plates and plastic cups. So,

718
00:25:44,079 --> 00:25:46,559
it's amazing what's made, and and, I think

719
00:25:46,559 --> 00:25:48,174
our audience knows that. And I would love

720
00:25:48,174 --> 00:25:50,494
to hear stories from them about things they

721
00:25:50,494 --> 00:25:52,575
they have to clue their, their relatives and

722
00:25:52,575 --> 00:25:55,134
friends into about. But these are important subjects,

723
00:25:55,134 --> 00:25:57,214
and I appreciate you going over both the,

724
00:25:57,375 --> 00:25:58,914
the check road, the PESD.

725
00:25:59,375 --> 00:26:01,095
What does PESD stand for? I can't remember

726
00:26:01,214 --> 00:26:04,170
Yeah. No. It's Gus, Permanent electrical safety device.

727
00:26:04,390 --> 00:26:05,610
Okay. Okay. Good.

728
00:26:06,710 --> 00:26:08,549
Yeah. And then we we talked about the

729
00:26:08,549 --> 00:26:09,930
bulkhead connectors too.

730
00:26:11,190 --> 00:26:12,950
Anything else you wanna talk about when it

731
00:26:12,950 --> 00:26:14,950
comes to safety by design? Because I know

732
00:26:14,950 --> 00:26:16,795
it's a big topic these days. I mean,

733
00:26:16,795 --> 00:26:19,195
you know, so so, it's there's a lot

734
00:26:19,195 --> 00:26:21,195
of you know, there's there's other devices that

735
00:26:21,195 --> 00:26:22,974
we don't make that,

736
00:26:23,595 --> 00:26:26,634
you know, that play into electrical safety by

737
00:26:26,634 --> 00:26:28,634
design. You know, we have a panel outside

738
00:26:28,634 --> 00:26:29,775
this door here,

739
00:26:30,329 --> 00:26:32,349
you know, and that's got a a sequester

740
00:26:32,410 --> 00:26:32,910
disconnect.

741
00:26:33,369 --> 00:26:33,869
Okay?

742
00:26:34,490 --> 00:26:37,369
That's a great safety by design innovation. Right?

743
00:26:37,369 --> 00:26:38,970
All of a sudden, the control side of

744
00:26:38,970 --> 00:26:42,569
that enclosure is, you know, 24 volt, you

745
00:26:42,569 --> 00:26:43,605
know, touch safe.

746
00:26:44,164 --> 00:26:46,244
And the power side is on in in

747
00:26:46,244 --> 00:26:48,964
the sequester. So there's there's a lot of

748
00:26:48,964 --> 00:26:50,964
ways to do safety by design. There's there's

749
00:26:50,964 --> 00:26:52,345
ways to cover over terminals,

750
00:26:53,684 --> 00:26:55,464
for switching of,

751
00:26:56,644 --> 00:26:57,144
switchgear.

752
00:26:57,929 --> 00:26:58,889
You can get,

753
00:26:59,369 --> 00:27:02,089
a automatic kind of robotic switch that you

754
00:27:02,089 --> 00:27:03,289
don't have to stand in front of the

755
00:27:03,289 --> 00:27:06,089
door when you're switching. I mean, there's a

756
00:27:06,089 --> 00:27:08,349
there's a whole plethora of items.

757
00:27:09,849 --> 00:27:11,445
IR windows, for instance.

758
00:27:12,625 --> 00:27:13,365
IR windows,

759
00:27:13,984 --> 00:27:16,305
allow you to do infrared inspection without having

760
00:27:16,305 --> 00:27:18,644
to open up panel doors. We also have,

761
00:27:19,025 --> 00:27:20,085
we also have,

762
00:27:20,625 --> 00:27:22,085
continuous thermal monitoring,

763
00:27:22,865 --> 00:27:23,365
solutions

764
00:27:23,940 --> 00:27:26,819
for MV switchgear. At Automation Fair, we'll be

765
00:27:26,819 --> 00:27:28,279
releasing a LV,

766
00:27:28,980 --> 00:27:30,339
monitor as well.

767
00:27:30,980 --> 00:27:31,480
And

768
00:27:32,259 --> 00:27:34,579
that actually I I guess one other thread

769
00:27:34,579 --> 00:27:35,559
to pull on there

770
00:27:36,099 --> 00:27:36,599
is

771
00:27:37,380 --> 00:27:39,159
70 e makes this assumption

772
00:27:39,835 --> 00:27:40,575
with electrical,

773
00:27:41,035 --> 00:27:41,535
equipment.

774
00:27:42,555 --> 00:27:43,295
It it's

775
00:27:44,315 --> 00:27:47,055
either closed and guarded or, like, well maintained.

776
00:27:47,595 --> 00:27:49,835
Okay? So one of the changes over the

777
00:27:49,835 --> 00:27:51,275
last kind of year and a half, two

778
00:27:51,275 --> 00:27:54,460
years has been NFPA 70 b, b as

779
00:27:54,460 --> 00:27:57,099
in boy, is the electrical standard for maintenance

780
00:27:57,099 --> 00:27:57,599
reliability,

781
00:27:57,900 --> 00:27:58,559
I believe,

782
00:27:59,259 --> 00:28:00,559
for electrical equipment.

783
00:28:01,740 --> 00:28:03,579
It actually tells you how you should be

784
00:28:03,579 --> 00:28:06,400
maintaining your gear, and that's been elevated to

785
00:28:06,515 --> 00:28:09,235
the same level of standard as NFPA 70

786
00:28:09,235 --> 00:28:10,215
e. Okay?

787
00:28:11,235 --> 00:28:11,735
And

788
00:28:12,434 --> 00:28:14,134
one of these things is just

789
00:28:14,595 --> 00:28:16,835
one one thing that causes arc flash is

790
00:28:16,835 --> 00:28:17,654
hot spots.

791
00:28:18,434 --> 00:28:22,269
And so a a loose bolted connection can

792
00:28:22,269 --> 00:28:24,669
cause a thermal runaway event in a pretty

793
00:28:24,669 --> 00:28:27,150
dramatic way. And so, you know, even just

794
00:28:27,150 --> 00:28:29,869
maintaining your switchgear now has become part of

795
00:28:29,869 --> 00:28:31,650
that safety process.

796
00:28:32,295 --> 00:28:33,994
Right? If you don't if you don't exercise

797
00:28:34,055 --> 00:28:35,275
your breaker, by the way,

798
00:28:35,815 --> 00:28:36,315
regularly,

799
00:28:36,615 --> 00:28:38,775
you don't keep your switchgear clean. You don't

800
00:28:38,855 --> 00:28:40,634
you know, there's this whole thing.

801
00:28:41,735 --> 00:28:43,835
You're you're not gonna have reliable

802
00:28:44,295 --> 00:28:46,695
safety results on the back end of that

803
00:28:46,695 --> 00:28:47,195
process.

804
00:28:48,319 --> 00:28:51,200
And so definitely check out NFPA SMDB. If

805
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:52,640
you guys are, you know, if you guys

806
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:54,880
are kind of new into this arc flash

807
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,240
world, there's incredible kind of consulting companies that

808
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:00,480
can that can help you out, train you,

809
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:02,900
get you started on electrical safety program.

810
00:29:03,474 --> 00:29:05,154
I'd just do a shout out to Terry

811
00:29:05,154 --> 00:29:07,255
Becker and Jim Pollard. They're fantastic.

812
00:29:08,115 --> 00:29:09,875
But they're and the e hazard guys. I

813
00:29:09,875 --> 00:29:11,315
mean, we've got a lot of partners in

814
00:29:11,315 --> 00:29:12,294
that space and,

815
00:29:12,914 --> 00:29:14,375
highly encourage you,

816
00:29:14,914 --> 00:29:16,519
to be ahead of the eight ball on

817
00:29:16,519 --> 00:29:18,599
both the 70 b conversation as well as

818
00:29:18,599 --> 00:29:19,740
the 70 e conversation.

819
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:21,720
Yeah. And I'd love to know from the

820
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:23,240
audience too, how many of you guys are

821
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:25,720
using the the the heat cameras. Right? The

822
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:28,119
infrared or or heat sensing cameras. I think

823
00:29:28,119 --> 00:29:30,140
one popular line is the flare cameras.

824
00:29:31,184 --> 00:29:33,744
Very expensive, but they basically give you the

825
00:29:33,744 --> 00:29:36,065
heat map of your of your panel or

826
00:29:36,065 --> 00:29:38,224
your MCC or whatever. And what your product

827
00:29:38,224 --> 00:29:40,304
does is it provides twenty four seven seven

828
00:29:40,304 --> 00:29:42,464
monitoring of that instead of just doing it

829
00:29:42,464 --> 00:29:44,279
on a, you know, on a regular, you

830
00:29:44,279 --> 00:29:44,779
know,

831
00:29:45,079 --> 00:29:46,779
scheduled maintenance. Alright?

832
00:29:47,159 --> 00:29:49,480
But, so very interesting. I would love to

833
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:51,179
know what you guys are doing out there.

834
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:52,839
Also, if, any of you guys are going

835
00:29:52,839 --> 00:29:54,759
automation, I won't be there. I'm actually going

836
00:29:54,759 --> 00:29:56,325
to a different event right now.

837
00:29:57,284 --> 00:29:59,125
Another very large vendor has invited me to

838
00:29:59,125 --> 00:30:01,125
go to an event. So, but I'd love

839
00:30:01,125 --> 00:30:02,325
to hear what you guys are doing if

840
00:30:02,325 --> 00:30:03,924
you're going to the show this year. Just

841
00:30:04,005 --> 00:30:05,125
and if you are, I'd love to know

842
00:30:05,125 --> 00:30:07,384
what you find out. But in any case,

843
00:30:08,085 --> 00:30:10,244
Drew, I wanted to talk about, some of

844
00:30:10,244 --> 00:30:12,000
the other topics you had on the list,

845
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,519
of things that interest you both professionally and

846
00:30:15,519 --> 00:30:17,440
personally. And I think we had a couple

847
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:18,960
of different things. I think, one of them

848
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,319
was, wearables. Another one was IoT. Correct me

849
00:30:22,319 --> 00:30:24,045
if I'm wrong. But No. But

850
00:30:24,445 --> 00:30:26,045
Absolutely. No. Look. I guess I'll jump into

851
00:30:26,045 --> 00:30:28,684
the wearables first because I think, you know,

852
00:30:28,684 --> 00:30:30,684
we've been talking about safety by design for

853
00:30:30,684 --> 00:30:32,924
the equipment. We haven't really talked about monitoring

854
00:30:32,924 --> 00:30:33,585
the worker.

855
00:30:34,125 --> 00:30:34,625
Yeah.

856
00:30:34,924 --> 00:30:35,424
Right?

857
00:30:36,045 --> 00:30:38,125
And we're very interested in kind of this

858
00:30:38,125 --> 00:30:39,265
interplay between,

859
00:30:41,029 --> 00:30:43,369
you know, between the worker and the equipment.

860
00:30:43,829 --> 00:30:45,589
And we we think that there's gonna be

861
00:30:45,589 --> 00:30:47,589
kind of a lot of innovation as you're

862
00:30:47,589 --> 00:30:49,509
able to now with new technology be able

863
00:30:49,509 --> 00:30:51,349
to kinda monitor both things at the same

864
00:30:51,349 --> 00:30:52,250
time, and,

865
00:30:52,595 --> 00:30:54,275
there there's definitely a future kind of road

866
00:30:54,275 --> 00:30:55,494
map there for us.

867
00:30:56,195 --> 00:30:58,035
One of the products that we released this

868
00:30:58,035 --> 00:30:58,535
year

869
00:30:58,835 --> 00:30:59,894
is called PROXY.

870
00:31:00,434 --> 00:31:01,734
We released it in February,

871
00:31:02,674 --> 00:31:04,835
and we've seen just incredible kind of take

872
00:31:04,835 --> 00:31:06,055
off on this product.

873
00:31:06,809 --> 00:31:08,589
And it's a new it's a wearable.

874
00:31:09,450 --> 00:31:10,429
Looks like this,

875
00:31:10,970 --> 00:31:13,149
and you wear it on your dominant hand.

876
00:31:13,529 --> 00:31:14,909
This senses voltage,

877
00:31:15,369 --> 00:31:16,649
from a 120

878
00:31:16,649 --> 00:31:18,269
up to 400 kV.

879
00:31:19,634 --> 00:31:20,515
And it's,

880
00:31:21,555 --> 00:31:22,775
it will light

881
00:31:23,154 --> 00:31:25,174
and beep, but most importantly,

882
00:31:25,795 --> 00:31:27,955
it will vibrate as you get close. So

883
00:31:27,955 --> 00:31:29,315
if you're wearing it kind of under a

884
00:31:29,315 --> 00:31:30,755
glove or something and you can't see it

885
00:31:30,755 --> 00:31:32,595
or hear it, it's a loud industrial environment,

886
00:31:32,595 --> 00:31:35,269
it'll vibrate on your wrist. We've we've noticed

887
00:31:35,269 --> 00:31:37,429
a trend with with folks who we've talked

888
00:31:37,429 --> 00:31:37,929
with.

889
00:31:38,950 --> 00:31:40,710
Most of the time when people get shocked,

890
00:31:40,869 --> 00:31:42,089
they thought it was off.

891
00:31:44,309 --> 00:31:44,809
Okay.

892
00:31:45,349 --> 00:31:47,894
Okay. I wanna know Gus stat. Yeah. Sean,

893
00:31:47,894 --> 00:31:49,494
I'm sure you've never been shocked and thought

894
00:31:49,494 --> 00:31:51,734
it was off. It's never happened before. Right?

895
00:31:51,734 --> 00:31:53,275
Find out quickly it's not off.

896
00:31:54,855 --> 00:31:55,355
So,

897
00:31:56,455 --> 00:31:57,414
you know, this,

898
00:31:58,295 --> 00:32:01,115
this product is fantastic for industrial environments.

899
00:32:02,059 --> 00:32:02,559
It's,

900
00:32:03,259 --> 00:32:06,799
it's really targeted towards the electrician, though maintenance

901
00:32:06,940 --> 00:32:08,539
technicians can go ahead and wear it as

902
00:32:08,539 --> 00:32:09,039
well.

903
00:32:09,980 --> 00:32:10,480
And,

904
00:32:10,859 --> 00:32:13,099
it connects up to your phone. You're able

905
00:32:13,099 --> 00:32:14,755
to go ahead and, you know, adjust some

906
00:32:14,755 --> 00:32:16,234
of the settings. So if you're working in

907
00:32:16,234 --> 00:32:18,974
a, you know, thirteen five kV substation,

908
00:32:19,275 --> 00:32:20,714
you can go ahead and change that setting

909
00:32:20,714 --> 00:32:22,555
to that voltage level, which will kind of

910
00:32:22,555 --> 00:32:24,494
expand the sensing radius.

911
00:32:26,410 --> 00:32:27,690
You know, or if you're only working on

912
00:32:27,690 --> 00:32:29,210
40 or 600 volts, you can go ahead

913
00:32:29,210 --> 00:32:31,049
and drop that down into those kind of

914
00:32:31,049 --> 00:32:31,549
typical,

915
00:32:32,329 --> 00:32:32,829
environments.

916
00:32:33,609 --> 00:32:35,769
It also has a full kind of cloud

917
00:32:35,769 --> 00:32:37,230
dashboard and reporting.

918
00:32:37,690 --> 00:32:40,105
And one thing I think is really an

919
00:32:40,105 --> 00:32:41,724
important discussion here for

920
00:32:42,025 --> 00:32:42,845
the safety

921
00:32:43,144 --> 00:32:44,445
and risk folks,

922
00:32:45,384 --> 00:32:46,205
in the audience

923
00:32:46,904 --> 00:32:47,404
is

924
00:32:47,945 --> 00:32:49,644
I use this analogy a lot.

925
00:32:50,980 --> 00:32:52,899
Imagine you're a cardiac surgeon, but you're, like,

926
00:32:52,899 --> 00:32:54,279
the local cardiac surgeon.

927
00:32:54,579 --> 00:32:55,079
Right?

928
00:32:55,380 --> 00:32:58,179
And then imagine that you're the cardiac surgeon

929
00:32:58,179 --> 00:32:58,919
at Mayo.

930
00:32:59,299 --> 00:33:02,440
Mayo, those cardiac surgeons probably have a higher

931
00:33:02,500 --> 00:33:04,579
kind of mortality rate than maybe what the

932
00:33:04,579 --> 00:33:07,217
local you know, your city. Right? Because they

933
00:33:07,217 --> 00:33:09,929
get the hardest cases. But they're also the

934
00:33:09,929 --> 00:33:12,640
best surgeons, and they're the most trained. And

935
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,351
so when we're when we're looking through the

936
00:33:15,351 --> 00:33:18,063
data sets that proxy provides, it allows us

937
00:33:18,063 --> 00:33:21,000
to really pinpoint who our highest risk worker

938
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:21,500
is.

939
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:23,799
Not the not the person who's necessarily doing

940
00:33:23,799 --> 00:33:24,779
anything wrong.

941
00:33:25,559 --> 00:33:26,059
Right?

942
00:33:26,519 --> 00:33:29,000
They're they're doing potentially everything right, but they

943
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,835
are in the most risky job. And so

944
00:33:31,894 --> 00:33:34,794
that allows us to now have leading indicators

945
00:33:34,934 --> 00:33:37,815
of risk for the electrical worker, and we

946
00:33:37,815 --> 00:33:41,015
can take mitigation measures against that that risk

947
00:33:41,015 --> 00:33:41,515
indicator.

948
00:33:41,974 --> 00:33:44,694
For instance, maybe instead of checking PPE once

949
00:33:44,694 --> 00:33:46,759
a year, we're gonna do it quarterly.

950
00:33:47,059 --> 00:33:49,539
We're gonna make sure that all their training

951
00:33:49,619 --> 00:33:51,220
perhaps they need to go to some more

952
00:33:51,220 --> 00:33:52,600
advanced training courses.

953
00:33:53,059 --> 00:33:55,220
Maybe if we know that that's happening, maybe

954
00:33:55,220 --> 00:33:56,680
we need to make sure that there's,

955
00:33:57,299 --> 00:33:59,160
additional people you know, additional,

956
00:33:59,940 --> 00:34:01,275
person standing by,

957
00:34:02,154 --> 00:34:04,875
you know, or maybe a supervisor goes out

958
00:34:04,875 --> 00:34:06,474
on a ride along a little bit more

959
00:34:06,474 --> 00:34:09,355
frequently. There's there's other kind of procedural things

960
00:34:09,355 --> 00:34:11,695
that we can do that really addresses that,

961
00:34:13,434 --> 00:34:15,449
that can address that risk just so that

962
00:34:15,449 --> 00:34:17,789
we're providing support to those higher risk workers.

963
00:34:17,929 --> 00:34:19,609
I think we're all past the day of,

964
00:34:19,609 --> 00:34:20,269
you know,

965
00:34:20,570 --> 00:34:21,070
using

966
00:34:22,250 --> 00:34:24,730
using numbers to beat people down. I think

967
00:34:24,730 --> 00:34:27,050
we're all trying to really use numbers now

968
00:34:27,050 --> 00:34:28,889
to build people up and to be smart

969
00:34:28,889 --> 00:34:31,054
about kind of the risk and safety culture

970
00:34:31,054 --> 00:34:33,074
that we're trying to build, in the facility.

971
00:34:33,934 --> 00:34:35,775
I don't know, Sean. What other questions might

972
00:34:35,775 --> 00:34:37,295
you might you have on proxy? I'm not

973
00:34:37,295 --> 00:34:38,275
sure if I

974
00:34:38,574 --> 00:34:40,755
I might have covered it, but go ahead.

975
00:34:41,054 --> 00:34:42,654
Oh, no. I just could see that, you

976
00:34:42,654 --> 00:34:45,420
know, some standard procedures having to change if

977
00:34:45,420 --> 00:34:47,500
you like, you may not know you were

978
00:34:47,500 --> 00:34:49,760
getting that close to that type of voltage

979
00:34:50,380 --> 00:34:52,539
prior to having this watch like device on

980
00:34:52,539 --> 00:34:54,460
your arm. And being able to look at

981
00:34:54,460 --> 00:34:56,460
the all that data over time, you may

982
00:34:56,460 --> 00:34:59,065
be saying, hey. You guys, we didn't realize,

983
00:34:59,065 --> 00:35:01,465
but you can't cut through that spot in

984
00:35:01,465 --> 00:35:01,965
the,

985
00:35:02,344 --> 00:35:04,105
wherever you're working in the machine or in

986
00:35:04,105 --> 00:35:05,864
the plant or in the power room. You

987
00:35:05,864 --> 00:35:07,625
can't cut through there anymore. You're coming too

988
00:35:07,625 --> 00:35:09,224
close to that that,

989
00:35:09,545 --> 00:35:11,465
to to be in close to the to

990
00:35:11,465 --> 00:35:13,839
yellow to the, to the voltage there. I

991
00:35:13,839 --> 00:35:16,260
can also see too that maybe some barriers

992
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:18,739
aren't acting as they should be. So

993
00:35:19,039 --> 00:35:20,639
maybe I don't know I don't know what

994
00:35:20,639 --> 00:35:22,000
would go wrong, but if there was a

995
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:24,179
shield inside the enclosure that had it degraded,

996
00:35:25,199 --> 00:35:27,195
you would know that because the sensor's picking

997
00:35:27,195 --> 00:35:28,795
that up. Whereas, otherwise, you just look at

998
00:35:28,795 --> 00:35:30,875
it, it looks great. Right? And so I

999
00:35:30,875 --> 00:35:31,695
think that

1000
00:35:31,994 --> 00:35:34,075
by having that, by wearing that, and by

1001
00:35:34,075 --> 00:35:35,775
having that information available

1002
00:35:36,474 --> 00:35:36,974
historically,

1003
00:35:37,594 --> 00:35:38,815
you can might maybe,

1004
00:35:40,380 --> 00:35:42,219
you know, even just knowing that somebody was

1005
00:35:42,219 --> 00:35:43,579
in the wrong place, it's like, hey. You

1006
00:35:43,579 --> 00:35:45,260
weren't supposed to be in that area. You're

1007
00:35:45,260 --> 00:35:47,739
not rated that level yet. How come you're

1008
00:35:47,739 --> 00:35:49,279
seeing this high level voltage,

1009
00:35:50,299 --> 00:35:51,819
when you're not supposed to be working in

1010
00:35:51,819 --> 00:35:53,579
that area? So I can see that there's

1011
00:35:53,579 --> 00:35:54,859
a lot of things it can do to

1012
00:35:54,859 --> 00:35:57,155
keep you safe and to track who's doing

1013
00:35:57,155 --> 00:35:59,315
what, where, and when to make sure that

1014
00:35:59,315 --> 00:36:00,295
everything's going

1015
00:36:00,675 --> 00:36:02,514
according to the plan, according to the way

1016
00:36:02,514 --> 00:36:04,434
it should be. Right? And if you see

1017
00:36:04,434 --> 00:36:04,755
any,

1018
00:36:05,554 --> 00:36:07,954
anything that's not on the normal that you

1019
00:36:07,954 --> 00:36:09,280
would not expect, then you can sit down

1020
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:10,559
with your folks and say, hey. Why did

1021
00:36:10,559 --> 00:36:12,260
this happen? Why did you get an alert?

1022
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:14,000
We didn't we you weren't supposed to be

1023
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:15,440
working on that part of the plant that

1024
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:16,960
today. Why why did you get an alert?

1025
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:18,400
We saw that you came close to some

1026
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:20,320
high voltage. So I just think that's super

1027
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:22,240
interesting. And for those listening, the the device

1028
00:36:22,240 --> 00:36:23,114
looks like a watch.

1029
00:36:23,675 --> 00:36:26,235
So, that's the size of it, and, so

1030
00:36:26,235 --> 00:36:27,835
it wouldn't be too cumbersome or in your

1031
00:36:27,835 --> 00:36:30,875
way. Yeah. We we, we actually so this

1032
00:36:30,875 --> 00:36:33,755
year, we presented at IEEE Electrical Safety Workshop.

1033
00:36:33,755 --> 00:36:35,340
We won paper of the year

1034
00:36:35,900 --> 00:36:38,219
on that. We co presented with a partner

1035
00:36:38,219 --> 00:36:40,380
in Tri City Electric. They're a top 20

1036
00:36:40,380 --> 00:36:41,440
electrical contractor

1037
00:36:41,820 --> 00:36:43,519
heavily in the data center space,

1038
00:36:43,900 --> 00:36:45,739
and one of our very early kind of

1039
00:36:45,739 --> 00:36:46,559
pilot customers.

1040
00:36:46,940 --> 00:36:48,539
They went ahead. They they rolled out, I

1041
00:36:48,539 --> 00:36:49,579
think, it was, like, a 100 or a

1042
00:36:49,579 --> 00:36:50,800
150 bands,

1043
00:36:52,214 --> 00:36:55,094
And for a three month pilot, in three

1044
00:36:55,094 --> 00:36:57,174
months, they were able to catch three near

1045
00:36:57,174 --> 00:36:57,674
misses.

1046
00:36:57,974 --> 00:36:58,634
A lot.

1047
00:36:59,255 --> 00:36:59,755
And

1048
00:37:00,614 --> 00:37:01,114
then,

1049
00:37:01,494 --> 00:37:04,190
unfortunately, there was a fourth incident. And,

1050
00:37:06,010 --> 00:37:08,349
a gentleman came into contact with four eighty.

1051
00:37:08,889 --> 00:37:10,010
He ended up having to spend the night

1052
00:37:10,010 --> 00:37:11,389
in the hospital. He's okay.

1053
00:37:11,849 --> 00:37:13,929
Right. That day, he ended up,

1054
00:37:14,409 --> 00:37:16,489
forgetting to put his band on in the

1055
00:37:16,489 --> 00:37:18,905
car. And so he he he he forgot

1056
00:37:18,905 --> 00:37:20,204
it in the car that day.

1057
00:37:20,585 --> 00:37:22,344
And so there was a safety stand down

1058
00:37:22,344 --> 00:37:24,364
meeting the following day after the incident.

1059
00:37:24,744 --> 00:37:26,765
And, you know, the owners and the management

1060
00:37:26,985 --> 00:37:29,190
of Tri City came in and said, hey.

1061
00:37:29,670 --> 00:37:31,750
We're really you know, we we really are

1062
00:37:31,750 --> 00:37:33,190
trying to keep you guys safe. You gotta

1063
00:37:33,190 --> 00:37:34,650
wear these these bands.

1064
00:37:35,349 --> 00:37:36,949
You know, and and some of the older

1065
00:37:36,949 --> 00:37:37,449
electricians

1066
00:37:37,750 --> 00:37:39,849
were kinda hemming and hawing. And

1067
00:37:40,230 --> 00:37:42,489
finally, the the union manager

1068
00:37:42,869 --> 00:37:44,594
got up and goes, no. Look. We're investing

1069
00:37:44,594 --> 00:37:46,275
in your guys' safety. You will be wearing

1070
00:37:46,275 --> 00:37:47,255
these every day.

1071
00:37:47,795 --> 00:37:48,295
And

1072
00:37:48,594 --> 00:37:50,835
the it's really I mean, that cost of

1073
00:37:50,835 --> 00:37:51,494
an incident,

1074
00:37:52,114 --> 00:37:53,315
even though it was just a single night

1075
00:37:53,315 --> 00:37:55,474
in the hospital between the downtime, you know,

1076
00:37:55,474 --> 00:37:56,215
the OSHA

1077
00:37:56,730 --> 00:37:58,670
fines and kind of all these things.

1078
00:37:59,449 --> 00:38:01,369
You know, it was a $250,000

1079
00:38:01,369 --> 00:38:01,869
event.

1080
00:38:02,570 --> 00:38:05,690
Right? And and those three other near misses,

1081
00:38:05,690 --> 00:38:07,130
that would have been a 700, you know,

1082
00:38:07,130 --> 00:38:08,594
$750,000.

1083
00:38:08,835 --> 00:38:11,255
The payback in three months was enormous,

1084
00:38:11,875 --> 00:38:13,894
right, by preventing any of those incidents.

1085
00:38:14,755 --> 00:38:17,014
We also ended up winning show stopper,

1086
00:38:17,554 --> 00:38:20,275
the show stopper were award at NECA, a

1087
00:38:20,275 --> 00:38:22,675
few weeks ago, which is total surprise, which

1088
00:38:22,675 --> 00:38:23,969
is really, really cool.

1089
00:38:24,289 --> 00:38:25,489
And so it's been just great to get

1090
00:38:25,489 --> 00:38:27,590
a little bit of, like, industry, like, validation

1091
00:38:27,730 --> 00:38:29,650
that, hey. What we're we're on the right

1092
00:38:29,650 --> 00:38:30,769
track here, and people,

1093
00:38:31,250 --> 00:38:33,329
you know, it's it's cool to be able

1094
00:38:33,329 --> 00:38:35,889
to bring technology that actually really impacts people's

1095
00:38:35,889 --> 00:38:36,389
lives.

1096
00:38:36,764 --> 00:38:38,364
Another kind of thing I think to think

1097
00:38:38,364 --> 00:38:39,585
about here is is

1098
00:38:39,964 --> 00:38:42,944
it's something like eighty percent of injuries happen

1099
00:38:43,244 --> 00:38:45,164
the first two or three years on the

1100
00:38:45,164 --> 00:38:45,664
job.

1101
00:38:46,364 --> 00:38:46,864
So,

1102
00:38:47,324 --> 00:38:47,984
you know,

1103
00:38:48,364 --> 00:38:50,204
when you start thinking about who to protect

1104
00:38:50,204 --> 00:38:51,424
with some of these devices,

1105
00:38:51,890 --> 00:38:54,449
we've seen a massive turnover and,

1106
00:38:54,930 --> 00:38:55,430
seniority

1107
00:38:55,809 --> 00:38:58,789
in industrial facilities and electrical contractors. Right?

1108
00:38:59,570 --> 00:39:01,590
A lot of a lot of the older

1109
00:39:01,650 --> 00:39:04,289
experienced people have left, and now there's younger

1110
00:39:04,289 --> 00:39:06,855
people, and it you know, they just don't

1111
00:39:06,855 --> 00:39:09,015
have the experience level. And so a lot

1112
00:39:09,015 --> 00:39:10,934
of the a lot of the units that

1113
00:39:10,934 --> 00:39:13,275
we have help make you both more productive,

1114
00:39:14,215 --> 00:39:16,235
more safe, but also it's more obvious.

1115
00:39:16,614 --> 00:39:17,675
Right? And,

1116
00:39:18,135 --> 00:39:19,655
and so if you're new, it's it's it's

1117
00:39:19,655 --> 00:39:21,559
good to have kind of that obvious factor.

1118
00:39:23,219 --> 00:39:24,039
Yeah. Absolutely.

1119
00:39:24,820 --> 00:39:26,739
And that's, I mean, that's industry wide. We

1120
00:39:26,739 --> 00:39:28,420
just have people like to retire when they

1121
00:39:28,420 --> 00:39:29,079
get old.

1122
00:39:29,460 --> 00:39:31,800
We can blame them. How rude. How rude.

1123
00:39:33,405 --> 00:39:33,565
So

1124
00:39:34,445 --> 00:39:35,804
yep. So in any case, I know there

1125
00:39:35,885 --> 00:39:37,965
was there another topic you wanted to cover

1126
00:39:37,965 --> 00:39:39,885
during today's show? I think we really did

1127
00:39:39,885 --> 00:39:41,724
a good job on covering those previous two

1128
00:39:41,724 --> 00:39:42,224
topics.

1129
00:39:42,765 --> 00:39:43,324
Oh, sure.

1130
00:39:43,724 --> 00:39:45,585
So on the IIoT front,

1131
00:39:46,045 --> 00:39:47,105
I led an acquisition,

1132
00:39:47,885 --> 00:39:48,945
in 2017,

1133
00:39:49,699 --> 00:39:50,519
that really

1134
00:39:50,819 --> 00:39:53,880
transitioned Grace from being a more mechanical,

1135
00:39:54,179 --> 00:39:57,239
analog electrical company into a fully digital business.

1136
00:39:58,659 --> 00:39:59,159
And

1137
00:39:59,539 --> 00:40:01,799
we we realized that there was a dramatic

1138
00:40:01,940 --> 00:40:05,414
need, throughout industry across all sorts of verticals,

1139
00:40:05,714 --> 00:40:07,574
across all different application spaces

1140
00:40:08,355 --> 00:40:08,855
that

1141
00:40:09,714 --> 00:40:11,414
they really wanna prevent downtime.

1142
00:40:11,795 --> 00:40:12,295
And

1143
00:40:12,755 --> 00:40:15,875
in you know, as as The US is

1144
00:40:15,875 --> 00:40:16,855
on its reindustrialization

1145
00:40:17,474 --> 00:40:17,974
journey,

1146
00:40:19,039 --> 00:40:21,460
we have to run these plants super reliably.

1147
00:40:21,679 --> 00:40:24,820
The CapEx expenditures are really, really high. Right?

1148
00:40:25,039 --> 00:40:26,639
And a lot of a lot of the

1149
00:40:26,639 --> 00:40:27,139
methodology

1150
00:40:27,519 --> 00:40:28,019
for,

1151
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,855
plant reliability has been either just scheduled maintenance

1152
00:40:32,994 --> 00:40:34,054
or run to failure.

1153
00:40:35,235 --> 00:40:36,755
And so we're just gonna wait for things

1154
00:40:36,755 --> 00:40:38,835
to fail, or we might go around on

1155
00:40:38,835 --> 00:40:40,835
a yearly or a monthly basis and do

1156
00:40:40,835 --> 00:40:43,394
maintenance whether they need it or not. Also,

1157
00:40:43,394 --> 00:40:46,949
sometimes if you you know, over maintaining equipment

1158
00:40:46,949 --> 00:40:48,250
is also a bad thing.

1159
00:40:49,670 --> 00:40:50,789
It it it leads to a lot of

1160
00:40:50,789 --> 00:40:51,289
failures.

1161
00:40:51,989 --> 00:40:54,309
And so we we went through kind of

1162
00:40:54,309 --> 00:40:57,349
our IIoT and reliability journey. And so we

1163
00:40:57,349 --> 00:40:58,409
released our

1164
00:40:58,974 --> 00:41:01,454
new vibration temperature node out at automation fair

1165
00:41:01,454 --> 00:41:02,914
last year. This is our VVTX.

1166
00:41:03,454 --> 00:41:06,335
This sits out on any rotating asset across

1167
00:41:06,335 --> 00:41:08,914
industrial facilities. We also work with OEMs.

1168
00:41:10,094 --> 00:41:11,554
They have specialized equipment,

1169
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:13,679
and we're able to go ahead and and

1170
00:41:13,679 --> 00:41:14,179
monitor,

1171
00:41:15,199 --> 00:41:17,780
you know, vibration in three axis plus temperature.

1172
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:20,159
We do a full four a transform down

1173
00:41:20,159 --> 00:41:21,599
the node. We're able to get about ten

1174
00:41:21,599 --> 00:41:24,494
years battery life on this. What's what's really

1175
00:41:24,494 --> 00:41:26,594
unique about us though is just that

1176
00:41:27,214 --> 00:41:28,755
with our relationship with Rockwell,

1177
00:41:29,054 --> 00:41:31,635
we've had a, we were able to develop

1178
00:41:31,694 --> 00:41:32,194
a

1179
00:41:33,054 --> 00:41:34,574
a gateway that was,

1180
00:41:34,974 --> 00:41:37,250
Ethernet IP based. And so we're one of

1181
00:41:37,250 --> 00:41:40,150
the only cloud optional kind of IoT companies

1182
00:41:40,210 --> 00:41:41,030
in this space.

1183
00:41:41,650 --> 00:41:43,170
And what we found with a lot of

1184
00:41:43,170 --> 00:41:45,090
controls engineers is they wanna go ahead and

1185
00:41:45,090 --> 00:41:47,010
have one of these types of systems, but

1186
00:41:47,010 --> 00:41:49,250
they wanna integrate it into their PLC or

1187
00:41:49,250 --> 00:41:51,170
into their into their SCADA system or their

1188
00:41:51,170 --> 00:41:53,864
HMI screens. And so we have a AOP

1189
00:41:53,864 --> 00:41:55,405
through Rockwell add on profile,

1190
00:41:55,785 --> 00:41:57,305
that you can go ahead and download,

1191
00:41:57,864 --> 00:42:00,344
and we've made it super easy to configure

1192
00:42:00,344 --> 00:42:02,525
wireless a wireless new network inside

1193
00:42:02,905 --> 00:42:03,805
of that AOP.

1194
00:42:04,969 --> 00:42:06,429
And that's been a really

1195
00:42:06,730 --> 00:42:08,730
cool, cool thing, and the results that we've

1196
00:42:08,730 --> 00:42:10,569
seen have been, you know,

1197
00:42:10,969 --> 00:42:12,489
enormous. I mean, it's like you catch one

1198
00:42:12,489 --> 00:42:14,250
of these downtime events and the whole project

1199
00:42:14,250 --> 00:42:16,650
just pays for itself. Yeah. And it's it's

1200
00:42:16,650 --> 00:42:18,730
great ROI. The other thing is is that

1201
00:42:18,730 --> 00:42:19,514
there is a

1202
00:42:19,994 --> 00:42:21,295
safety and reliability

1203
00:42:21,914 --> 00:42:23,375
piece together. Right?

1204
00:42:24,154 --> 00:42:26,315
There's there's a stat that was at one

1205
00:42:26,315 --> 00:42:27,135
of these conferences,

1206
00:42:28,154 --> 00:42:29,214
and it was, like,

1207
00:42:30,234 --> 00:42:31,054
80%

1208
00:42:31,434 --> 00:42:31,934
of,

1209
00:42:33,019 --> 00:42:36,960
80% of incidents happen during reactive maintenance.

1210
00:42:37,739 --> 00:42:39,900
So it's when it's like when the plant's

1211
00:42:39,900 --> 00:42:42,699
down and everyone's feeling pressure and the COO

1212
00:42:42,699 --> 00:42:44,139
is calling, hey. We gotta get this plant

1213
00:42:44,139 --> 00:42:45,934
running. We gotta get this plant running. That

1214
00:42:45,934 --> 00:42:48,175
people end up, you know, just naturally taking

1215
00:42:48,175 --> 00:42:49,954
some sort of shortcuts, and

1216
00:42:50,335 --> 00:42:52,094
they, you know, they get hurt. And so

1217
00:42:52,094 --> 00:42:53,454
if we can be a little bit more

1218
00:42:53,454 --> 00:42:54,755
preventative, predictive,

1219
00:42:55,215 --> 00:42:57,295
you know, and say, hey. Like, this is

1220
00:42:57,295 --> 00:42:59,454
what's going on. We've also added in some

1221
00:42:59,454 --> 00:43:00,355
defect classification

1222
00:43:00,655 --> 00:43:03,239
as well, which allows you to to to

1223
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:05,480
kind of look at, the data trends and

1224
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:07,079
say, hey. This is a bearing issue. This

1225
00:43:07,079 --> 00:43:09,239
is a bent shaft. And so we've kind

1226
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:09,820
of developed,

1227
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:11,640
pretty unique,

1228
00:43:12,039 --> 00:43:12,539
analytics,

1229
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:13,820
sandbox.

1230
00:43:14,664 --> 00:43:16,744
And so that's been a really awesome kind

1231
00:43:16,744 --> 00:43:18,444
of product line to to see,

1232
00:43:18,824 --> 00:43:20,744
and we just we love working with companies

1233
00:43:20,744 --> 00:43:23,625
that have interesting applications and OEMs who, you

1234
00:43:23,625 --> 00:43:25,224
know, have a lot of equipment out there

1235
00:43:25,224 --> 00:43:26,519
that they want to,

1236
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:28,760
be able to monitor maybe on behalf of

1237
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:30,059
their customers as well.

1238
00:43:30,599 --> 00:43:32,119
Yeah. And the fact that you can integrate

1239
00:43:32,119 --> 00:43:33,340
it on Ethernet IP

1240
00:43:34,039 --> 00:43:36,679
is a big plus because if you have,

1241
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:38,920
if you have Ethernet IP all over the

1242
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:41,295
place, that's a great way to integrate it.

1243
00:43:41,375 --> 00:43:42,894
I also think and this is a little

1244
00:43:42,894 --> 00:43:44,655
off topic, so I apologize if I get

1245
00:43:44,655 --> 00:43:46,734
this wrong. But I I thought I remember

1246
00:43:46,734 --> 00:43:49,694
an acquisition you did where you had these

1247
00:43:49,775 --> 00:43:51,454
because you want these sensors. You don't wanna

1248
00:43:51,454 --> 00:43:53,135
be changing the batteries on these sensors all

1249
00:43:53,135 --> 00:43:55,454
the time. Right? And a ten year life

1250
00:43:55,454 --> 00:43:56,114
is phenomenal.

1251
00:43:56,414 --> 00:43:58,369
Right? But I also saw another,

1252
00:43:58,690 --> 00:44:00,150
technology I believe you guys,

1253
00:44:01,410 --> 00:44:01,910
acquired

1254
00:44:02,369 --> 00:44:05,510
that allows the heat differential between the actual

1255
00:44:05,890 --> 00:44:08,450
device, like the motor, and the ambient air

1256
00:44:08,450 --> 00:44:10,289
to power the sensors as well. Can you

1257
00:44:10,289 --> 00:44:13,364
talk about that? Yeah. That that acquisition was

1258
00:44:13,364 --> 00:44:14,265
called Perpetua,

1259
00:44:15,204 --> 00:44:16,405
and that,

1260
00:44:16,965 --> 00:44:18,105
that unit today,

1261
00:44:19,525 --> 00:44:22,664
it's quite a complex web of, certifications

1262
00:44:22,965 --> 00:44:25,704
because it's got all the intrinsic safety certifications.

1263
00:44:26,005 --> 00:44:28,859
Ah. So that today really only works with,

1264
00:44:29,099 --> 00:44:29,599
Emerson,

1265
00:44:30,380 --> 00:44:31,359
Rosemont transmitters.

1266
00:44:31,739 --> 00:44:33,420
Okay. We we we do have it in

1267
00:44:33,420 --> 00:44:35,739
our roadmap to kind of combine that into

1268
00:44:35,739 --> 00:44:37,420
our nodes to be able to offer an

1269
00:44:37,420 --> 00:44:37,920
additional,

1270
00:44:39,099 --> 00:44:40,940
additional power source that you don't have to

1271
00:44:40,940 --> 00:44:42,159
go out and change batteries.

1272
00:44:43,385 --> 00:44:45,385
The r and d team's still working, you

1273
00:44:45,385 --> 00:44:47,244
know, many one of the many, many projects,

1274
00:44:47,304 --> 00:44:49,065
but we do think that that's a pretty

1275
00:44:49,065 --> 00:44:49,565
compelling,

1276
00:44:50,905 --> 00:44:52,605
a a pretty compelling piece of technology.

1277
00:44:53,545 --> 00:44:54,045
And,

1278
00:44:55,545 --> 00:44:56,204
you know,

1279
00:44:56,809 --> 00:44:57,710
these thermoelectric

1280
00:44:58,010 --> 00:44:58,510
generators,

1281
00:44:59,769 --> 00:45:01,230
I think are gonna be a

1282
00:45:01,929 --> 00:45:04,489
huge kind of game changer across the industrial

1283
00:45:04,489 --> 00:45:06,590
facility and will allow a lot of different,

1284
00:45:07,769 --> 00:45:10,269
a lot of different sensors to be powered

1285
00:45:10,329 --> 00:45:11,630
at a much higher

1286
00:45:12,335 --> 00:45:13,875
refresh rate as well.

1287
00:45:14,335 --> 00:45:15,775
Yeah. And, you know, we're we're kind of

1288
00:45:15,775 --> 00:45:17,154
excited for that future.

1289
00:45:18,014 --> 00:45:21,234
You know, just hazardous location certifications are

1290
00:45:21,934 --> 00:45:22,674
are tough,

1291
00:45:23,855 --> 00:45:24,255
but,

1292
00:45:24,815 --> 00:45:26,594
we, we've been working on it.

1293
00:45:27,260 --> 00:45:29,579
So and you just don't actually sell the

1294
00:45:29,579 --> 00:45:31,500
products. Don't you have to go along with

1295
00:45:31,500 --> 00:45:34,059
these, like, a con a cloud based, condition

1296
00:45:34,059 --> 00:45:34,559
monitoring

1297
00:45:35,179 --> 00:45:37,359
solution as well for those who want that?

1298
00:45:37,420 --> 00:45:38,859
Yes. Absolutely. So we have a we have

1299
00:45:38,859 --> 00:45:40,825
a full cloud based kind of suite of,

1300
00:45:40,825 --> 00:45:43,324
you know, all the dashboarding and analytics tools

1301
00:45:43,704 --> 00:45:45,465
and the ability to go through and set

1302
00:45:45,465 --> 00:45:47,724
up assets and monitor those assets.

1303
00:45:48,505 --> 00:45:50,425
You know? But, you know, we think that

1304
00:45:50,425 --> 00:45:52,905
there's incredible value there, but we totally understand

1305
00:45:52,905 --> 00:45:54,989
our customers kind of if they go, hey.

1306
00:45:54,989 --> 00:45:57,230
We can't have cloud. I we go, no

1307
00:45:57,230 --> 00:46:00,269
problem. There's a control only integration available to

1308
00:46:00,269 --> 00:46:02,110
you. If you wanna go ahead and add

1309
00:46:02,110 --> 00:46:03,949
on the cloud later, if you want additional

1310
00:46:03,949 --> 00:46:04,929
kind of insights,

1311
00:46:05,390 --> 00:46:07,070
we're more than happy to go ahead and

1312
00:46:07,070 --> 00:46:08,670
add that package onto your,

1313
00:46:08,989 --> 00:46:09,890
onto your deployment.

1314
00:46:10,565 --> 00:46:12,404
Yeah. I can definitely see where this part

1315
00:46:12,404 --> 00:46:14,964
that's not the controls engineer's kinda gambit. Maybe

1316
00:46:14,964 --> 00:46:15,704
it's facilities.

1317
00:46:16,005 --> 00:46:18,724
In some places, the controls engineer doesn't get

1318
00:46:18,884 --> 00:46:20,964
they don't get into HVAC. They don't get

1319
00:46:20,964 --> 00:46:21,704
into facilities,

1320
00:46:22,005 --> 00:46:23,764
you know, freshwater and all that. Some places,

1321
00:46:23,764 --> 00:46:25,500
they do. Some places, they don't. So I

1322
00:46:25,500 --> 00:46:26,960
could see for that kind of,

1323
00:46:28,059 --> 00:46:29,519
person who's doing the,

1324
00:46:30,139 --> 00:46:30,800
kind of,

1325
00:46:31,179 --> 00:46:32,940
you know, the the site wide stuff that

1326
00:46:32,940 --> 00:46:34,380
that would be huge because they can put

1327
00:46:34,380 --> 00:46:36,139
this on the where they need, they can

1328
00:46:36,139 --> 00:46:37,579
put that on the the devices on the

1329
00:46:37,579 --> 00:46:39,304
motors they need them on, and they just

1330
00:46:39,304 --> 00:46:40,545
have it all go to the cloud. They

1331
00:46:40,545 --> 00:46:42,545
don't have to learn anything about PLCs. Am

1332
00:46:42,545 --> 00:46:45,364
I right? Absolutely. I mean, it's and

1333
00:46:45,744 --> 00:46:48,784
it's super easy to just add additional nodes

1334
00:46:48,784 --> 00:46:49,764
in. Right?

1335
00:46:50,385 --> 00:46:52,144
You know, on your on your PLC, you

1336
00:46:52,144 --> 00:46:53,605
would need to be able to,

1337
00:46:54,949 --> 00:46:57,190
create the visualize you know, you need to

1338
00:46:57,190 --> 00:46:59,349
create the visualization in the HMI screens. Right?

1339
00:46:59,349 --> 00:47:00,710
So if you wanna add additional nodes, there's

1340
00:47:00,710 --> 00:47:02,309
a little bit of programming to be able

1341
00:47:02,309 --> 00:47:03,989
for that to show up in your your

1342
00:47:03,989 --> 00:47:04,489
HMI,

1343
00:47:05,269 --> 00:47:07,429
whereas in the cloud, it's just immediate and

1344
00:47:07,429 --> 00:47:07,929
automatic.

1345
00:47:08,244 --> 00:47:09,784
We also will be running,

1346
00:47:10,484 --> 00:47:13,204
and releasing additional prediction models. We actually got

1347
00:47:13,204 --> 00:47:14,025
a Nice.

1348
00:47:14,565 --> 00:47:16,184
Million dollar NSF grant,

1349
00:47:16,644 --> 00:47:18,105
especially on bearing prediction.

1350
00:47:18,804 --> 00:47:20,505
And bearing prediction is a

1351
00:47:21,204 --> 00:47:22,824
relatively difficult problem.

1352
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:25,940
It it you know, there there's

1353
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:28,500
only a little bit of kind of,

1354
00:47:29,119 --> 00:47:32,079
information ahead of the degradation curve, and so

1355
00:47:32,079 --> 00:47:33,519
you have to pick this up really at,

1356
00:47:33,519 --> 00:47:34,960
like, the right point in time. And so

1357
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,539
we've we've been developing models and testing out.

1358
00:47:37,655 --> 00:47:39,655
You know, if there's listeners who wanna partner

1359
00:47:39,655 --> 00:47:41,734
with us to also help kinda validate some

1360
00:47:41,734 --> 00:47:42,554
of that information,

1361
00:47:43,094 --> 00:47:46,135
we're always looking for, customers to collaborate with

1362
00:47:46,135 --> 00:47:46,635
and,

1363
00:47:47,414 --> 00:47:49,655
you know, folks who are who are looking

1364
00:47:49,655 --> 00:47:51,960
to increase the reliability of their equipment.

1365
00:47:52,599 --> 00:47:54,599
Yeah. Especially for those who are driving. Can

1366
00:47:54,599 --> 00:47:56,440
you give the folks, the best way to

1367
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:58,059
get in contact with Grace,

1368
00:47:58,920 --> 00:47:59,420
specifically?

1369
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:01,739
So go ahead and find me on LinkedIn,

1370
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:02,699
Drew Allen.

1371
00:48:03,159 --> 00:48:04,380
It's it's my name.

1372
00:48:05,154 --> 00:48:05,654
Also,

1373
00:48:05,954 --> 00:48:07,714
if you if you wanna send us an

1374
00:48:07,714 --> 00:48:08,214
email,

1375
00:48:08,994 --> 00:48:12,194
my email is drewa@gracetechnologies.com,

1376
00:48:12,194 --> 00:48:15,554
or you can email sales@gracetechnologies.com

1377
00:48:15,554 --> 00:48:17,554
as well. Someone will be in touch with

1378
00:48:17,554 --> 00:48:19,320
you, and we'd love to love chat, but

1379
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:21,239
connect with me on LinkedIn. I I I

1380
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:21,559
love,

1381
00:48:22,119 --> 00:48:23,820
I love, engaging on LinkedIn.

1382
00:48:24,519 --> 00:48:27,000
That's awesome. Well, Drew, I'm looking at the

1383
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:28,840
time. Was there anything else you want to,

1384
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:30,539
discuss in this episode?

1385
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:32,804
No, Sean. I I just, you know, thanks

1386
00:48:32,804 --> 00:48:34,405
so much for kinda what you've been doing

1387
00:48:34,405 --> 00:48:36,164
in the automation space and your support of

1388
00:48:36,164 --> 00:48:37,224
Grace over the years.

1389
00:48:37,844 --> 00:48:39,764
It's, it's been cool to see what you've

1390
00:48:39,764 --> 00:48:40,824
built, and,

1391
00:48:41,204 --> 00:48:43,525
always great to sit down and just talk

1392
00:48:43,525 --> 00:48:45,144
kind of product and insights,

1393
00:48:45,989 --> 00:48:47,269
of what we're of what we're seeing in

1394
00:48:47,269 --> 00:48:48,789
the field, and, hopefully, we can do this

1395
00:48:48,789 --> 00:48:49,530
again sometime.

1396
00:48:50,070 --> 00:48:51,510
No. I appreciate it. And I, you know,

1397
00:48:51,510 --> 00:48:53,590
I think, I have fond memories of Grace

1398
00:48:53,590 --> 00:48:55,269
throughout the years and all those different ads.

1399
00:48:55,269 --> 00:48:56,869
The one that looked like I think it

1400
00:48:56,869 --> 00:48:59,414
looked like the game operation and then going

1401
00:48:59,414 --> 00:49:01,255
through all of the iterations as if things

1402
00:49:01,255 --> 00:49:02,335
would come out. And,

1403
00:49:02,775 --> 00:49:05,114
just, was really glad to have you on,

1404
00:49:05,255 --> 00:49:07,335
learn about the history of the company, and

1405
00:49:07,335 --> 00:49:09,414
learn about some of your products, which, of

1406
00:49:09,414 --> 00:49:11,574
course, we're we've all seen, here and there.

1407
00:49:11,574 --> 00:49:12,789
And, if anybody,

1408
00:49:13,269 --> 00:49:15,349
goes to Automation Fair, make sure you say

1409
00:49:15,349 --> 00:49:17,589
hi to the folks over at the Grace

1410
00:49:17,589 --> 00:49:19,909
booth. And, Drew, again, I just wanna thank

1411
00:49:19,909 --> 00:49:21,609
you for coming on the Automation Podcast.

1412
00:49:21,909 --> 00:49:23,289
Hey. Thanks so much, Sean.

1413
00:49:23,750 --> 00:49:25,589
Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode. And,

1414
00:49:25,670 --> 00:49:27,494
just a reminder, if you need any online

1415
00:49:27,494 --> 00:49:29,734
or in person training, please contact me over

1416
00:49:29,734 --> 00:49:31,755
at the automation school dot com.

1417
00:49:32,135 --> 00:49:33,734
All my information is at the top of

1418
00:49:33,734 --> 00:49:34,315
the website.

1419
00:49:34,775 --> 00:49:37,655
And, don't forget, if you are already enrolled

1420
00:49:37,655 --> 00:49:40,349
in or buy my existing courses, right,

1421
00:49:40,750 --> 00:49:41,890
you will get

1422
00:49:42,430 --> 00:49:44,510
the new courses completely free of charge. So

1423
00:49:44,510 --> 00:49:46,750
for instance, if you're in, you know, POC

1424
00:49:46,750 --> 00:49:49,170
basic standard or extended or CompactLogix

1425
00:49:49,550 --> 00:49:51,470
level one or level one and two, you're

1426
00:49:51,470 --> 00:49:53,230
getting the new course I'm released the next

1427
00:49:53,230 --> 00:49:54,675
year free of charge.

1428
00:49:55,074 --> 00:49:57,074
And if you come late to the party

1429
00:49:57,074 --> 00:49:58,594
and you buy the new twenty twenty six

1430
00:49:58,594 --> 00:50:00,355
course, you're gonna get the old course as

1431
00:50:00,355 --> 00:50:01,795
well. I just had somebody today tell me

1432
00:50:01,795 --> 00:50:03,554
they're stuck on version 20, and that's why

1433
00:50:03,554 --> 00:50:05,074
I'm giving them the old course with the

1434
00:50:05,074 --> 00:50:06,215
new course is because

1435
00:50:06,515 --> 00:50:08,750
you're gonna have people out there servicing version

1436
00:50:08,809 --> 00:50:10,890
one through version 30. Not everybody's gonna be

1437
00:50:10,890 --> 00:50:13,369
using 31 through 38. Right? So in any

1438
00:50:13,369 --> 00:50:16,010
case, check that out over at the automationschool.com.

1439
00:50:16,010 --> 00:50:18,250
They sponsored this episode, which is why I'm

1440
00:50:18,250 --> 00:50:20,144
talking about it again. But in any case,

1441
00:50:20,144 --> 00:50:21,425
it's a big part of my business. How

1442
00:50:21,425 --> 00:50:23,105
I keep the lights on is selling online

1443
00:50:23,105 --> 00:50:24,804
courses and in person training,

1444
00:50:25,105 --> 00:50:27,105
which, I get some exciting stuff, coming for

1445
00:50:27,105 --> 00:50:29,105
that this coming year too. Also,

1446
00:50:29,824 --> 00:50:32,065
please check out I'm I'm launching the new

1447
00:50:32,065 --> 00:50:35,079
channel, the Automation Museum channel, and so please

1448
00:50:35,079 --> 00:50:36,599
check that out. I was publishing the videos

1449
00:50:36,599 --> 00:50:38,039
here, but I decided I'm just gonna put

1450
00:50:38,039 --> 00:50:39,019
them all over there.

1451
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:42,039
We've not only had some interest interesting people

1452
00:50:42,039 --> 00:50:44,119
on the show, but we also interviewed one

1453
00:50:44,119 --> 00:50:46,059
of the design engineers on

1454
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:46,940
the

1455
00:50:47,559 --> 00:50:50,445
Modicon o eighty four. That's right. What many

1456
00:50:50,445 --> 00:50:53,405
considered the first PLC ever, yet we interviewed

1457
00:50:53,405 --> 00:50:53,905
him.

1458
00:50:54,204 --> 00:50:56,285
And so interesting, he's the guy who did

1459
00:50:56,285 --> 00:50:58,125
the firmware. You know, he's the one who

1460
00:50:58,125 --> 00:51:00,925
made the the, you know, the processor, the

1461
00:51:00,925 --> 00:51:03,690
CPU inside the on the circuit board. He's

1462
00:51:03,690 --> 00:51:05,769
the one who made that speak ladder logic,

1463
00:51:05,769 --> 00:51:08,010
and it's been so interesting. He sent us

1464
00:51:08,010 --> 00:51:10,329
a bunch of his notes recently that we're

1465
00:51:10,329 --> 00:51:12,889
gonna incorporate into the Automation Museum. I already

1466
00:51:12,889 --> 00:51:15,469
have done all the research on how to

1467
00:51:15,530 --> 00:51:16,250
do the,

1468
00:51:17,050 --> 00:51:19,094
virtual museum, so I can scan in all

1469
00:51:19,094 --> 00:51:20,855
my stuff, and you can actually go there

1470
00:51:20,855 --> 00:51:22,454
and look at it detailed as a three

1471
00:51:22,454 --> 00:51:23,114
d model.

1472
00:51:23,494 --> 00:51:25,655
And, so that research's all done. Now we

1473
00:51:25,655 --> 00:51:28,695
just need financing. So I think over eight

1474
00:51:28,695 --> 00:51:31,014
months, we raised $200, and I wanna thank

1475
00:51:31,014 --> 00:51:32,934
the four people out there who donated. Thank

1476
00:51:32,934 --> 00:51:35,070
you very much. Really appreciate you guys. You're

1477
00:51:35,070 --> 00:51:36,269
the you're the cream of the crop of

1478
00:51:36,269 --> 00:51:38,750
the industry, quite honestly. But, thank you so

1479
00:51:38,750 --> 00:51:40,670
much. And if you guys wanna see that,

1480
00:51:41,070 --> 00:51:43,230
that interview with the the guy who designed

1481
00:51:43,230 --> 00:51:44,769
the monoclon o 84,

1482
00:51:45,150 --> 00:51:47,545
that'll be releasing on the new standalone

1483
00:51:47,845 --> 00:51:49,545
automation museum nonprofit,

1484
00:51:51,045 --> 00:51:52,825
YouTube channel and website.

1485
00:51:53,285 --> 00:51:55,925
I'm hoping over the holidays, I'll have some

1486
00:51:55,925 --> 00:51:57,765
time to work on that, but try to

1487
00:51:57,765 --> 00:51:59,445
do work on those things on Sundays because

1488
00:51:59,445 --> 00:52:01,309
it is a nonprofit. But in any case,

1489
00:52:01,309 --> 00:52:03,010
I wanna wish you a happy holiday.

1490
00:52:03,469 --> 00:52:05,070
This is it. This is the last episode

1491
00:52:05,070 --> 00:52:07,230
for this year. We already have several episodes

1492
00:52:07,230 --> 00:52:10,110
ready for next year and, probably skipped the

1493
00:52:10,110 --> 00:52:12,349
first week of the year. But, we have,

1494
00:52:12,670 --> 00:52:14,510
just a bunch of interesting people. I have

1495
00:52:14,510 --> 00:52:16,074
interviews from when I was at the Schneider

1496
00:52:16,074 --> 00:52:17,835
event. I've reached out to a bunch of

1497
00:52:17,835 --> 00:52:19,675
people at Rockwell. I gotta reach out to

1498
00:52:19,675 --> 00:52:21,114
my friends at Siemens. I know they had

1499
00:52:21,114 --> 00:52:22,715
a reorg, so I don't even know who

1500
00:52:22,715 --> 00:52:24,875
to talk to anymore. But, wanted to learn

1501
00:52:24,875 --> 00:52:26,715
about new things there because we've had Siemens

1502
00:52:26,715 --> 00:52:28,859
on quite a bit this year, talking about

1503
00:52:28,859 --> 00:52:30,299
all their great new products. And I think

1504
00:52:30,299 --> 00:52:31,980
there might be a new version of TIA

1505
00:52:31,980 --> 00:52:34,699
Portal out. I noticed a new product, a

1506
00:52:34,699 --> 00:52:37,339
new version of CCW. Actually, it's called, I

1507
00:52:37,339 --> 00:52:38,799
think, Design Workbench

1508
00:52:39,099 --> 00:52:41,579
that's replacing CCW, but it's it's not ready

1509
00:52:41,579 --> 00:52:43,099
for prime time. We'll talk about more of

1510
00:52:43,099 --> 00:52:45,085
that, Maybe even before the end of the

1511
00:52:45,085 --> 00:52:47,565
year on the, on on the other show,

1512
00:52:47,565 --> 00:52:49,965
the automation show, or tech tips or tech

1513
00:52:49,965 --> 00:52:52,204
talk. But, we're gonna keep that going too

1514
00:52:52,204 --> 00:52:53,805
into the new year. We get some new

1515
00:52:53,805 --> 00:52:54,864
websites planned.

1516
00:52:55,325 --> 00:52:57,805
We'll look we're talking to sponsors to sponsor

1517
00:52:57,805 --> 00:53:00,019
this show, and maybe I can off offload

1518
00:53:00,019 --> 00:53:02,119
some of the editing to somebody else because,

1519
00:53:02,500 --> 00:53:04,340
honestly, it takes a long time editing the

1520
00:53:04,340 --> 00:53:05,940
show. It's not just setting them up and

1521
00:53:05,940 --> 00:53:08,900
recording them. So in any case, especially when

1522
00:53:08,900 --> 00:53:10,420
the sponsor, we try try to go through

1523
00:53:10,420 --> 00:53:12,375
it with a fine tooth comb. But, yeah,

1524
00:53:12,375 --> 00:53:14,855
a lot of exciting stuff coming for 2026.

1525
00:53:14,855 --> 00:53:17,255
I'm looking forward to it, and, I hope

1526
00:53:17,255 --> 00:53:19,655
you guys as are as well. And, just

1527
00:53:19,655 --> 00:53:21,894
wanna wish you all a very, again, a

1528
00:53:21,894 --> 00:53:23,034
very happy holiday.

1529
00:53:23,335 --> 00:53:25,735
Merry Christmas. Happy New Year, and we'll see

1530
00:53:25,735 --> 00:53:28,269
you back here on the automation podcast in

1531
00:53:28,269 --> 00:53:30,349
early twenty twenty six. And with that, I

1532
00:53:30,349 --> 00:53:32,610
wanna wish you all good health and happiness.

1533
00:53:32,829 --> 00:53:34,289
Until next time, my friends.

1534
00:53:34,910 --> 00:53:35,410
Peace.