Who builds this

Who builds this.
And how.

Anyone who sees the numbers asks two questions: can he actually do this? And how does he manage it on the side? Both answers are here.

01

Can he actually do this?

The title block — like the stamp in the bottom right corner of every drawing.

Author
Martin Kittner
Location
Bernau near Berlin
Trained as
Electronics technician for industrial engineering
Further training
Certified industrial foreman, electrical engineering
Role
Responsible qualified electrician
Since
2022
Teaching others
Trainer and examiner, after the foreman qualification
Today
on request
Practice
Control cabinet building · Electrical design · Plant engineering
Years
since 2020
Tools so far
EPLAN Electric P8 · SIMATIC S7-1500 and TIA Portal

Sketrix is not the idea of someone who likes software. It is the idea of someone who found the existing tool too expensive, too bloated and on the wrong machine.

The full record is on LinkedIn

02

How does he manage it on the side?

Over 200,000 lines, next to a full-time job and a family. That sounds hard to believe, so here is the explanation: the building does not happen at the Mac.

It happens from my phone. An AI workshop keeps going even when I am not sitting in front of it. The Mac is not the building site, the Mac is the workbench: that is where I check whether what was built holds up in the real program.

The system runs as long as it is allowed to run. I read along, I decide, I sign it off. Whatever fails the check at the Mac goes back.

Martin — decides, reads along, signs off

  • The rulebook what every single step has to comply with
  • The watchdogs they raise a hand before anything counts as done
  • The hands they build, they write, they check the work
  • The Mac the test bench, where everything has to prove itself

03

What went wrong

The interface
Botched it twice. I built it myself instead of taking what Apple ships. Now it is being planned again from scratch — chapter by chapter.
The speed
I left a serious performance problem alone for far too long. In the end it cost me more time than fixing it right away would have.
The foundation
I trusted a machine blindly. A second one later took apart what came out of it. I have been repairing that for over a month now, package by package.

This is here because it belongs here. Anyone who wants to know how far Sketrix has come should also know where I went off course — that is in Where things stand.

Sketrix is electrical CAD (E-CAD) for circuit diagrams, control systems and switchgear — with symbols based on IEC 60617. Not a PCB / circuit-board tool like KiCad or Eagle, but the software for control cabinets, terminal plans and electrical installation.