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The real work behind modern manufacturing.
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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PLC Programming Job With Zero Experience: Stay or Go Back to School?
Three weeks into a new PLC programming job with zero PLC experience, no training and nobody nearby to ask. That question drives this episode, along with a first panel build, why good PLC tutorials are scarce, a Lexium LXM32 CANopen motion workaround, and a PanelView 7 that fails only after download.
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AI in Industrial Automation: Where It Actually Works and Where It Fails on the Plant Floor
AI in industrial automation is producing real productivity gains and real risk at the same time. An honest account of where it helps, where it will confidently hand your team a wrong answer, and what that means for your review standards.
PLC Brand Debate: Rockwell, Siemens, Schneider, or Something Cheaper?
Choosing a PLC brand for a new plant has two very different answers depending on whether you own the factory or you are advising someone who does. This episode gives both, plus PoE for Point I/O, the trade school question, why PLC work keeps getting classed as a maintenance skill, and HMI design.
Ladder Logic vs C++: Why PLC Programmers Still Choose Ladder and Why They Are Right
Ladder logic is not a legacy habit. It is the right visual representation for the Boolean, state based logic that actually runs machines, and this week explains why that matters at three in the morning with a line down. Plus a Siemens and Danfoss commissioning panel, a home test rig, an AutomationDirect CLICK pump station with an HMI worth criticizing, and the first month in a controls role that felt like knowing nothing.
The premise
Notes from the floor,
not the brochure.
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
Vladimir Romanov
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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