OT- panel wiring

Chinese language, and "Living contentedly on 5 cents per day".

I wish that was actually more of a joke than it is.

Basic electronics, industrial electrician, industrial controls...

For as long as there's still a manufacturing or heavy industry of any sort sited locally, there's still need for panel wiring electricians. You just can't offshore this sort of on-site work.

Even with added complexity of components and the disappearance of the old relay cabinets of yore, there's still a call for panel electricians because an operator control needs a switch and a switch needs a wire, whether it's simple 24V or optical fibre data.

If you're looking at training though, get some PLC knowledge in there too.

This is one of those learn by doing things. I've learned a lot of this by installing retrofits on CNC machines. Do a Mach3, then a centroid, then an omniturn, then a Camsoft, etc. I think you could carefully buy dead equipment and make a little buy selling running CNC machines. For your first one, a dead Bridegeport series 3 can be had for under $500.

Of course if you could land a job as an electrican in any manufacturing site, they will pay you to learn.

Karl

Yes, and if you could sell these machines for $12,000 (or $25,000) then you could probably make a good living at it. In other words, sell the completed retrofit for what a NEW CNC machine goes for. The problem is that customers want the machine NOW, and they know how much you picked up the used iron for.

Jon

At trade school the classes I took were motors and controls I + II and PLC's I + II. They dealt directly with relays, control logic, timers, etc.

Nate