I’ve been wiring things together since I was eight, when my dad handed me a floorboard, some bulbs and a battery. That curiosity never stopped.
I’ve spent decades designing electronics for the power grid, switch-mode supplies, inverters and motors. So when I look at your VFDs, I’m seeing a world I’ve lived in most of my life.
What is “Not Wrong”?
Sounds like a twisted question, doesn’t it?
- The Power Quality guys:
- know what they’re doing
- can measure well
- produce detailed reports, with solid insights
- The equipment suppliers:
- know their kit inside out
- know how to set it up
- often have decent application experience too
- Your on-site team:
- have the deepest hands-on experience
- remember what failed, when and how
- are the ones who show up when it all goes wrong
None of that is broken!
So, What is “Wrong”?
It’s not joined up!
The power quality guys can show you what happened on the waveform. They don’t always know exactly where it came from, or how it ties into everything else running on the plant. They can see “it”, but can’t always get underneath “it”.
The equipment suppliers know their own drives and motors well. They have some troubleshooting experience, but they’re not there to sort out all the background problems across your site. That’s not what they’re paid for.
Your on-site team know the plant better than anyone, but the way they’re taught is often tool-first: which button, which menu, which code. The deeper, more awkward bits can be made understandable – if someone takes the time to bridge the gap – but that rarely happens.
So you end up with three groups who are each “not wrong” in their own patch… and the same drives still trip, the same motors still run hot, and everyone is a bit tired of hearing the same explanations.
All rounder or specialist?
My name isn’t Jack. It’s Peter Hawkins.
I’m not a jack-of-all-trades; I’m a specialist in one thing that sits underneath all of this.
My world runs from the electrons, through the circuitry, out into the bigger picture of drives, motors, switch-mode supplies, inverters and the grid. To me it’s all one joined-up system, not separate boxes.
That’s the point: I live in the joins.
I’m not here to replace your power quality team, your suppliers or your own electricians. I’m here to connect what each of them is seeing into a single picture that actually explains:
- why that drive keeps tripping
- what’s likely to fail next if nothing changes
- what your team can look for before it bites again
Making the difficult parts usable
Textbooks and formal study absolutely have their place. But on a busy site, you don’t need everyone to become a power-electronics specialist.
What you need is:
- a way of explaining the hard bits so your team can use them,
- without having to do all the maths or spend years buried in theory
That’s how I teach.
We use your plant, your measurements and your actual problems as the examples. We join up what the power quality report says, what the supplier knows, and what your team already sees every day.
Your electricians and on-site team are already most of the way there. My job is to bridge the last bit of that gap, so they can see the whole picture – and act on it.