Rookie estimating machine wiring

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JeffKiper

Electrical geek
Occupation
Controls guy
I run a small 3 man industrial controls shop. I'm getting more and more request for turnkey controls upgrades. I can quote the controls side all day long and am happy with that. My problem is quoting the wiring of the machine. 90% RMC. Alot of short runs to a Tee or LB and to a device.

Any software I've ever seen is for new install on a building. Ive never seen anythingl for machine controls. Is there such a software? Hopefully this makes since its been a 19 hr day and I'm trying to relax and calm down.
 

cdslotz

Senior Member
All software has RMC, LB's, condulets, unions, explosion proof boxes, all types of fittings, all types of wire, terminations, etc.......what more do you need?
 

JeffKiper

Electrical geek
Occupation
Controls guy
I have only seen a few software packages. From what I saw they where for running lots of pipe.
I dont kniw if there are any specifically for machine wiring. There's a lot of examples from switchgear to the control panel or panel to motors.

I'm a controls guy and running pipe isn't was we currently do. Customers are asking use branch out a little.
 

cpickett

Senior Member
Location
Western Maryland
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
We work on machines and I believe if you try to use software or labor units to price conduit/wire by the foot for a machine you will be way low unless you adjust the rates. Like you said they are short runs so the footage is low, but there will be a lot of time spent figuring out the best routing, or how to best connect to devices that don't always have conduit connections. Plus you may have to make brackets to mount conduit or devices on, not just strut or conduit straps on a wall. You'll have way more cutting and threading per stick of pipe than someone would doing an install in a building.
 

cpickett

Senior Member
Location
Western Maryland
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
Do you have experience with RMC? Do you have threaders and benders already? Would it be possible to sub out an install to an electrical contractor to get a feel for how long it takes them? If you don't have experience with rigid you'll be learning on the job and take longer at first, and you probably don't want to charge your customer for your learning, especially if you do a lot of work for them in your core competency (controls).

We usually estimate conduit/wire installs on a machine by figuring out how many guys we can use per day, and how many days it will take. That gives us a total labor hours number. Depending on the machine size, 2 or 3 guys may be all that can work on it without tripping over each other, or standing around. Usually you can have 1 cutting and threading, one or two guys mounting conduit and fittings. If there's overhead work, you want someone feeding material to the guys on the lift so they don't waste time coming up and down. Once you get wire pulled, if the cabinet is not a 2 door or larger, you can really only have 1 guy landing wires. The others can connect field devices. Then it is a question of how many days to land all the wires in the cabinet and how many days to connect devices.

Sorry if I'm telling you something you already know, but I have tried to come up with a scientific method like what you're asking, and haven't been able to yet. The part that's on your side is that industrial seems to be more forgiving/less cutthroat than commercial and especially residential, so you don't have to account for every wire nut. The recurring theme that I see here is that guys tend to estimate the labor low if nothing else. Just getting tools and material into and out of some plants can be a large time sink. Plus working around active processes, required safety permitting, etc, can eat up more time yet.
 

JeffKiper

Electrical geek
Occupation
Controls guy
cpickett

You hit it exactly. I have some experience with rigid. I'm a toolaholic so I'm tooled up to do just about anythingon 2" and down. 555, Chicago, 1 little pony, 1 regular pony, threaders, etc... We set up a greenlee clamshell with 1/2-1" fittings just for these type of things.

Im looking at bringing in a contractor to help / teach and I will fully disclose that my intention is to grow my machine business. I dont want to pull feeders and compete where the other guys are. I want the controls work. There are a bunch of guys that will run a 200 Amp feed for my panel. When it comes to running the field devices there arent a lot that do it and make it look good.
 

oldsparky52

Senior Member
cpickett

You hit it exactly. I have some experience with rigid. I'm a toolaholic so I'm tooled up to do just about anythingon 2" and down. 555, Chicago, 1 little pony, 1 regular pony, threaders, etc... We set up a greenlee clamshell with 1/2-1" fittings just for these type of things.

Im looking at bringing in a contractor to help / teach and I will fully disclose that my intention is to grow my machine business. I dont want to pull feeders and compete where the other guys are. I want the controls work. There are a bunch of guys that will run a 200 Amp feed for my panel. When it comes to running the field devices there arent a lot that do it and make it look good.

You are definitely on the right track here as far as I'm concerned. With the right EC, you can really grow. Great problems to have. :)
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
I run a small 3 man industrial controls shop. I'm getting more and more request for turnkey controls upgrades. I can quote the controls side all day long and am happy with that. My problem is quoting the wiring of the machine. 90% RMC. Alot of short runs to a Tee or LB and to a device.

Any software I've ever seen is for new install on a building. Ive never seen anythingl for machine controls. Is there such a software? Hopefully this makes since its been a 19 hr day and I'm trying to relax and calm down.

Machine builders are notoriously cheap. As bad as hvac manufacturers. They want you to quote them a price hoping you will underbid it. If these are larger custom machines you will probably find that when they call you to come start on it that the machine will be half built meaning you can never really finish, and the machine builders will be in your way the whole time. You need to account for those time wasters.

Many times you will also show up to the machine to find that lots of stuff has been added that are not shown on any drawings. They will of course expect you to wire that stuff up for free.

A lot may depend on how many machines you end up wiring. If you do a bunch of machines that are almost the same, you can sometimes make fixtures and jigs to help you do at least some of the work on the bench which may save you considerable field labor. It's amazing what a few 2X4s and some plywood can do to help you out in this way.
 

JeffKiper

Electrical geek
Occupation
Controls guy
Bob I work for end users 99% of the time.

I learned that machine builders are usually very cost ...... (You can fill in the blank) I also proved to 1 guy that the added cost of AB hardware on an AB controller would be less costly than shopping around for the best deal.

We uses the cost of $100.00 to generate a PO plus $125.00 an hour to shop for a better price. He found out that 2 hrs of shopping saved him $1,000.00 - $250.00 for his time, -$100.00 for the PO overhead. So i started putting the VFDs in and it cost him $2,000.00 extra in analog cards for the speed commands.
If I used the Ethernet/IP drives I wanted we would have saved a lot of cash. So he let me do the legwork of design and he sold the job.
That relationship unfortunately got strained and we parted ways. I now work directly for the end users as a System Integrator and NOT an OEM.
 
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