Another how much..

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ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
I do PLCs on occasion. I can get the job done. Mostly simple stuff. Still my time is worth something but I know I can't charge my normal hour rate for something that takes me to long. Took a whole day to download updates and get reacquainted.

How do you determine what should be charged for a one of a kind, start to finish project. All I am given is these are the motors, this is the control we currently have, this is the 1 acre of ground it will be on, and "Is it possible to make one motor shut off when another does?".

Do you charge by the line of program (60+-), pages of HMI (16), what?
 
Fulthrotl

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
Location
HB, CA (19 Hrs. 22 Min. from Winged Horses)
Occupation
E
ptonsparky said:
I do PLCs on occasion. I can get the job done. Mostly simple stuff. Still my time is worth something but I know I can't charge my normal hour rate for something that takes me to long. Took a whole day to download updates and get reacquainted.

How do you determine what should be charged for a one of a kind, start to finish project. All I am given is these are the motors, this is the control we currently have, this is the 1 acre of ground it will be on, and "Is it possible to make one motor shut off when another does?".

Do you charge by the line of program (60+-), pages of HMI (16), what?
Click to expand...

how many days will it take? including discussing the function with *all* the
people involved with having a hand in crafting the function

it isn't done by lines of code, it's done by completed working, functioning
system.

i had a conveyor that had to resize automatically for different size containers.
(30 & 55 gallon barrels)

i sat there and looked at the stupid thing for the better part of a day,
thinking about how to make it work. figured out a really simple solution,
that only needed 13 lines of code.

how much did i charge them? 2 days wages. and materials at 25% markup.

were they ok with it? yes. why? cause i was the third electrician who'd
looked at it, and the other two wanted to redesign the machine extensively
to make it work. (plasma cutter and welder extensive)

i don't get paid for providing complex solutions. i get paid for providing
simple solutions that work.
 
S

satcom

Senior Member
ptonsparky said:
Made me think just how could I have simplified things and between the computer and the bathroom I went "ah geez". Not going to change this one now but the next may be simpler.
Click to expand...

Well the guy that setup the PLC for a small sewer plant, project we worked, charged them 5K for programing, he was there 4 days. I think every project will be different, and you may need to estimate the worse case time.
 
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