[tunap]

I didn't go to HVAC school, but I have been moonlighting w/ a friend's HVAC business since 2002 for the exercise & appreciation of hard labor. That was well & good, and in time I was making decent, seasonal money working for someone else when not servicing IT needs of SB clients. Around 2008, as many of my clients were closing shop, I crossed paths with a "controls" guy and he showed me how to meld the technical & the labor to make as good money, if not better, as sitting behind a keyboard and playing whack-a-mole security full-time. Between pulling runs, provisioning controllers, solving failures and putting it all into comms I get all my mental, physical & financial needs met. I couldn't recommend it enough for anyone tired of the sedentary life at the keyboard. The only downside is I am still reliant on corporate managers & NOC engineers who have no clue how their products work in the field. YMMV.

TLDR: Get the HVAC skills, then go into PLC work.

Edited: 3rd sentence for context.

[t223]

Awesome advice, thanks. I’m happy to buy some stuff on eBay and play around.

Any suggestions? How about programming software? Readily available?

I recently picked up a Asco 300 w/comms module for my standby gen, DSE800 to control the engine, and a Siemens 9610 for consumption analysis.

I’m working on controls for load shedding now. I put shunt trip breakers on my water heater and it’ll kick off when on standby since I don’t have enough power, as per NEC.

I’m also working on a modulating valve controlled by the temp delta of my tankless water heater. Sometimes it can’t keep up and I’d rather slow down flow for a shower instead of letting it throw an error, resetting, and annoying people in the shower.

[tunap]

Most of the equipment & software I work with is owned/licensed by Honeywell and is proprietary, aka pricey. Older equipment can be found on reseller sites, but the developer software is expensive to license & hard to come by outside of the HON ecosystem.

If you go down the rabbit hole, check out Tridium, aka Niagara AX. Most(all?) of the big controls platforms are built on the Niagara framework.

Also, maybe contact contractors of Johnson Controls, Carrier Controls, Novar Controls, etc for more pertinent info.