Field transmission · FFN
Factory Field Notes is a no-fluff podcast about PLCs, controls, automation, and the careers built around them, pulled straight from the questions real engineers are asking. Hosted by Vladimir Romanov.
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A Mitsubishi sponsored university trainer and an Arduino Opta capstone panel show where PLC training kits fall short: banana plugs, single channel E-stops and a missing ground. Plus the Logix Designer laptop problem, whether PLC engineers need wiring knowledge, and what a controls engineer at a mine does all day.
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From the archive
Which HMI and SCADA platform to learn in 2026 matters less than the back end behind it and the project you apply it to. Plus a flooded Siemens PLC running Street Fighter, device level ring on a Stratix, an ice cream wash down panel, a nervous new technician, and the ladder versus structured text question again.
A new machine arrives with the builder's addressing scheme, and the plant has to renumber every device or put a NAT device in front of the panel. This is that decision, costed in licences, warranty, traffic and laptops, from a plant with a 1783-NATR in nearly every machine.
A CODESYS convert says structured text is the superior language, and I take apart the advice everyone reaches for in that argument. Plus a 168 station yarn machine, water inside a VFD, a controls engineer laid off after four years, and what a degree does not tell you about a junior hire.
Written down
10 min read
EP_20A PLC training kit should teach the plant floor: real terminals, 24 V DC for students, and no fake E-stops. Here is the layout I would build.
11 min read
EP_18Industrial NAT or readdressing for a new machine? What each really costs in licences, warranty, laptop access and traffic, plus a decision tree.
10 min read
EP_19The HMI SCADA platform to learn in 2026 is the one your plants run. Start free on Ignition, then put your hours into the backend that transfers.
The premise
Most manufacturing content is either a vendor pitch or a theory lecture. Factory Field Notes is neither. It's the conversation that actually happens between controls engineers, about the legacy PLC-5 that won't die, the IT/OT line that nobody owns, the troubleshooting instinct you can't buy, and whether this career is worth building.
Each Q&A week, we pull the sharpest questions from the r/PLC community and the field, and work through them honestly. No sponsors steering the answer, no jargon for its own sake. If you program, wire, commission, or maintain the systems that make things, this is your field journal.
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Your host
Founder of Joltek & SolisPLC, former Procter & Gamble and Kraft Heinz engineering leader, and co-host of Manufacturing Hub. He's commissioned $20MM+ lines, led unionized maintenance teams, and trained hundreds of thousands of automation professionals, and now he's taking the questions.
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