ACI built 3 DAQ (Data Acquisition) panels for a company in Houston, Texas. These were mounted on the wall inside a high pressure testing bunker. These panels supported all kinds of IO (2 LVDTs, 10 thermocouples, 2 linear displacement, 2 string pots, 8 pressure sensors, 2 quadrature inputs, valve control/status and pass through terminal blocks for even more support for an array of analog or digital IO the customer may use.) It also had an Opto22 groov EPIC with groov View pages accessible when on the same network. These panels had everything but the kitchen sink.
After building the first one, we redesigned the positions of the bulkhead connectors to not interfere with the internal wireway. These were tricky panels to fabricate at some points during the build but we got through it. We did have an extensive testing and checkout phase with these panels before they left the shop. Had the customer send us spare sensors that they would be using so we could test and calibrate the panels and make any required changes for them to function correctly. There were definitely design flaws discovered when testing that had to be corrected to function properly with the required sensors. Eventually, we got it functioning correctly, went to the customer location and installed all 3 in a day. After initial communications testing onsite, we were able to do startups remotely on the customer's schedule.
Though these three panels were a pain in the ass sometimes (a lot of the time), completing a difficult build while overcoming all the challenges that arose makes for some of the most rewarding experiences in the past couple of years of building and installing control systems. Check out the build below, the last photo is the completed panel.