Experience

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  Self-employed

  • South Africa, West Africa, Zambia, Nigeria etc.

  • Electrical Engineer

    • Nov 2010 - Present
    • South Africa, West Africa, Zambia, Nigeria etc.

    I consult and design electrical installations. (11kV & 400V installation) Single-line diagrams and switch-gear rating and selection.400Vac general reticulation design, fault level estimations and calculations, circuit breaker and cable sizing and fault-level discrimination design and MCB selection.Machine electrical and industrial electronic design.(Packaging Machinery)Lighting design and calculations for factories, offices and outdoor lighting.Machine control schematics using Elcad.Stand-By Generator sizing and change-over design and installation supervision.I train in basic PLC programming and Industrial Electronics.I offer training in industrial electronics and machine electrical training.I specialize in Soudronic FBB Can-Manufacturing machinery training and I mentor young plant engineers in maintenance and engineering management.I am both a theory man as well as a practical, hands on man.

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  Nampak

  • South Africa
  • Packaging and Containers Manufacturing
  • 700 & Above Employee

  • Electrical Design Engineer

    • Jan 2003 - Nov 2010

    I was part of the Electrical Design and Project management team for the DivFood Division of Nampak South Africa.I specialised in using ElCad electrical design package in my design work and was part of a project team working in Nampak Africa plants. (Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria etc.)As part of a a team my duties took me to the South African plants in Paarl, Durban, Vanderbijl Park.I have specialist training experience on the principles of Electrical Control of Soudronic FBB, Can Manufacturing Equipment. (Switzerland, Bergdietikon, Zurich).Stand-by Generator (500kVA and above) selection and installation with Auto-Change-Over design.

  • Electrical Design Engineer

    • 1980 - 2010

    Most of my design work was upgrading "hardwired" machine controlled equipment with PLC and Electronic control. The equipment from the USA and Europe were leading the way and we copied and even improved on there designs as we went about our upgrades.Please understand that there were no portable laptops and windows operating systems. Our portable computer was a custom manufactured trolley with a DOS system desk-top computer and "dot-matrix" printer bolted to it. The processor was an 8080 and the hard-drive was 10Megs with 2 x 350k floppy drives. The Klockner Moeller PLC software was "statement listing" and the machine control was either PLC or "card-logic". Only someone who has been there will know where I am coming from.Not even windows 3 was around.

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  Leon Venter Consulting

  • Self Employed

    • Feb 1991 - Jan 2003

    Machinery and Packaging Machinery and conveyor system design and PLC programming.HT and LT Electrical Design of Plant & Factory ReticulationIndustrial Electronics Design and Training.Project Management in the Packaging Industry for South African Breweries, Coca-Cola, Parmalat Dairies, Nampak Beverage Can Manufacturing Plants and I & J Fish Packaging Machinery Installation.

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  Metal Box Nampak

  • South Africa and Europe

  • Divisional Technical Training Manager

    • Jan 1978 - Feb 1991
    • South Africa and Europe

    Metal Box UK and Soudronic Switzerland had set up some of the best Can Manufacturing industrial machinery training in Europe. Metal Box SA and Nampak had a technical agreement with them and I was part of a team that replicated their training courses and equipment in Cape Town. It was my job to establish and manage this service.Soudronic FBB5501 Can manufacturing machine electrical training. & machine control principles. I have had the privilege of receiving machine electrical control training at Bergdietikon, Soudronic Head Office in the 1980's and then had the responsibility of imparting these control circuit principles to Nampak plant electrical personnel. I simplified the incredibly complicated control card operating principle card by card and cover the fault monitoring principles to make the service technicians job as simple as possible. I am confident that when I complete my weeks training the trainee can maintain and troubleshoot the FBB 5501 can manufacturing machine.