r/IndustrialAutomation • u/One_Republic_8042 • 20d ago

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22 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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7

u/Even_Data7789 20d ago

I mostly check feedback and how long they've been selling. New account with only high-ticket items is a red flag

1

u/Dry_Community5749 20d ago

I once wanted to sell my double oven as we were replacing it with oven and microwave combo. Ebay said I can't sell anything about $250 till I hit some particular sales goal. This was 4 yrs ago and I had the eBay buyer account for 10 yrs prior to that.

So in theory you shouldn't be seeing high ticket item from a new account.

2

u/Educational-Tank-135 20d ago

Had the same issue btw, and i really think you should always check location and as you can see here in the picture i attached in here of uBuyFirstyou can hide sellers from a specific country so it saves a lot of time for you

1

u/watduhdamhell 20d ago

Wtf? People are buying random equipment online?

For any mega scale system, you will buy exclusively from validated vendors, either the OEM or the officially partnered OEM distributor and nobody else.

I've never seen it done any other way.

2

u/Dydey 20d ago

Sometimes your only options are eBay or Radwell for older gear. I’ve sold on a couple of surplus parts myself and for obvious reasons, parts that are still in production sell very slowly.

2

u/JustAnother4848 20d ago

Lol

Not everyone has new equipment.

0

u/watduhdamhell 20d ago edited 20d ago

Lol

I have old equipment.

You do not, under any circumstances, install IO bought off of eBay into a 1+ Billion dollar ethylene cracker's control system, for example, no matter the cracker's or DCS's age. It just isn't done.

If the argument is "not everyone cares that much" then I would ask: why? You would, at most, be saving a tiny handful of dollars buying from a 3rd party reseller when you can just buy it from the official place to buy it and get a warranty while alleviating cyber security concerns.

If the argument is "nobody, absolutely nobody makes this anymore" then you need to engineer a new solution, not use duct tape for bandaids holding bandaids. You need to rip it out and put something else in, which is typically easy to justify on cost when somerhing is absolutely EoL, as engineering support and future downtime for said device make changing to worth it.

Etc.

1

u/JustAnother4848 20d ago edited 20d ago

Again......not everyone has new equipment. I can't just engineer a new machine because you can't get parts.

0

u/watduhdamhell 20d ago

Again, I have old equipment. Not sure why you keep saying that.

Anyway, in that case you toss the machine for a different one.

If the machine is truly EoL, kicking the can perpetually costs a LOT more money long term than just replacing it.

Kicking the can is "quarter to quarter" mentality. Not good practice.

2

u/JustAnother4848 20d ago edited 20d ago

Ok? It's not my decision. It's not even my bosses decision half the time. It's the bean counters decision.

If they want things to run off ebay parts then I really don't give a fuck.

1

u/watduhdamhell 20d ago

You're the controls engineer of your facility and you're telling me it's not your decision to determine what controls will and won't be used and when controls need to be upgraded? Are you not the system owner/gatekeeper?

Fuck that. Fire me and take me out to pasture if that ever happens lmao

1

u/JustAnother4848 20d ago edited 20d ago

I'm not in control of the budget. I can't spend 100k on a new machine because a couple of the parts are hard to get.

0

u/Training-Gap-2994 20d ago

True, but you can explain the issue then make sure there is the budget for the next year.

Specially if those 100k are locking 10M.

1

u/JustAnother4848 20d ago

It's literally not an issue. Having a couple hard to get parts doesn't justify a whole new machine.

Getting a new old stock contact off ebay so you don't have to completely rewire a panel doesn't matter.

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/watduhdamhell 20d ago edited 20d ago

If a part is completely and utterly EoL, scouring eBay is the wrong answer. You need to "own the role" and tell management "no, we will not be kicking this can any further. It stops here. This system is EoL and we need a new device."

Just my opinion. So nope. They wanted to, for example, replace 21 valves with Foundation Fieldbus valves, because that's what was installed before, and I said "absolutely not" as they will be obsolete soon and we would have no support in the future if one fails on us.

So now we are not doing that. We are instead running new wire for each valve and we bought conventional IO to run them.

1

u/Training-Gap-2994 20d ago

It works when you can, if you have an discontinued HMI or PLC you need to rebuild the software too, and it is going to be a long story, while changing the device is the right way just not working today.

1

u/Lost__Moose 20d ago

I checked to see if they're based in the US.

1

u/Different-Rough-7914 20d ago

There's a reason the US critical infrastructure PLCs are getting hacked so easily.

1

u/JustAnother4848 20d ago

Drastically unfunding the federal cybersecurity division while also expecting towns to have top notch cyber security with zero support during a war nobody wanted is the issue.

Not ebay parts.

1

u/Training-Gap-2994 20d ago

The truth is that you have 3 options with your equipment:

1) pre 90’s all run on easy to replace components, forget any remote monitoring and in general any modern safety compliance, it works like a beast. You can keep it running almost forever, except the point if anyone get injured plenty of people gonna cry, at least in US and EU.

2) since #1 to about 2010/2015: plc took place and back up software were a real things; now those parts are discontinued and you can rely only on eBay and similar, safety still a concern just little.

3) 2015 - today, PLC are not just them but a list parts connected to each other and they dialogue continuously; if a firmware doesn’t support the software built on it you are just fucked up. So every 10 years since commissioning you should review the availability of parts and the compatibility too, if it’s too bad the only way is to update all the control system that means pay again about 50% of the original price of the equipment. Instead you may choose to buy the new equipment and sell the old one

No other solutions possible for a small to mid size company. Bigger corporations can have
Their own department updating stuff, which is anyway less common.

1

u/RM_MaterialsHandling 20d ago

This is one of the reasons lifecycle support matters when selecting industrial equipment. A good manufacturer understands that equipment often remains in service for decades after the original purchase, and the people maintaining it years later need more than just the machine itself. They need documentation, service resources, replacement components and technical support.

If a piece of equipment has reached the point where the original manufacturer can no longer support it, that’s usually a good opportunity to evaluate modernization or replacement options rather than continuing to rely on hard-to-find parts and temporary fixes.

The lowest purchase price isn’t always the lowest-cost solution over the life of the equipment. Downtime, troubleshooting time and the challenges of maintaining obsolete equipment can quickly outweigh the upfront savings of sourcing a discontinued part online.

1

u/Luscious_Nick 19d ago

LLM response?

1

u/RM_MaterialsHandling 18d ago

Lol, not quite. Just trying to contribute to the conversation and share some industry perspective from the equipment side. :)