sparkatrician

G'day all!

Been a little while since I posted here.

I'm quite settled here in Australia now in Sydney and have a decent job.

In the hope of trying to get a better job I was considering doing the Certificate IV in electrical instrumentation.

Has anyone any experience of doing the course?. What was it like?

Does it help you stand out in the marketplace?

Cheers for any replies

:-)

Sue

Can't help with you query, but I just stumbled upon your post and wanted to say hi and congrats on the job news and that you are settling into life in Australia so well.

derren7

Hi all,
Thought I would resurrect this thread as I'm thinking of getting this
qualification. As the OP has asked, is it worth getting this certificate ?
Cheers Derren

Deyan

Yes if you want to work on rigs or in mines

look at the foto what is the money on Gorgon project (oil&gas)

sparkatrician

I started this thread nearly a year ago and forgot about it!.

Just wanted to add that the cert IV is pretty good for getting into mining and O&G but I've recently completed the cert III instrumentation & control and since then I've had lots of job offers.

So I'd say cert 4 is worthwhile but the cert 3 is actually even more desireable to employers but the c3 takes a lot longer to complete.

jimcz

Hi, looking at the photo, can you tell me what "electrician special class is"? I know that this term was used for maintenance sparky for migration purposes but I don't think it has the same meaning in this situation.

sparkatrician,
how long does it take to get cer 3 or 4 in that field?

rinkerdink

Not strictly true, special class for migration purposes is an electrician that can carry out all the duties of a general electrician and also has more more specialist knowledge of controls/ hydraulics/ pneumatics etc etc. I think the special class on these mines will be more like I've described and they'll probably want the instrumentation qualifications, can't say for sure as I wondered this myself. It is the only place I've seen special class used to describe an electrician other than for migration purposes...

sparkatrician

I think it took me 10 classroom days for the C4. The C3 was a mixture as I undertook RPL for the C3. So I attended TAFE do some "gap"modules after my RPL was complete. For the RPL part I supplied a lot of references from previous employers from job's I had worked on, again in great detail a bit like the migration references.

It was pretty straightforward process to be honest. THe hardest part was contacting ex employers and getting references etc.

derren7

Hey mate,
Thanks for the info.
My dilemma is that I have no experience in this field. Actually getting the cert iv seems straightforward enough but is actually worth getting it without any hands on experience? I believe that hands on experience is just as important, if not more so, than just having a paper qualification. Will it open any doors for me?
Also, do you know of any firms that are looking for people trying to break into this field.
Cheers Derren

sparkatrician

To be honest mate my instro skills are the best, I did most of my instro work in my younger years.

If people ask me I explain that I'm a sparky first and instro second!.

The C4 will definitley help, I'm on a job in the surat that's just coming to an end. A couple of months ago they had a few sparks that had done the C4 doing instro setup on mag flo meters and spanning instruments etc. Most of the tubing was done by guys that were dedicated "tubers". I'm not even sure if they were tradesmen to be honest (no disrespect intended to anyone who does this work! - my tubing is dodgy as).

The C4 will open doors to a degree. I've found there's a few sparks doing instro work with it. I think it's more a story of it's not who you know it's what you know. Most of the guys on this site have worked together on other jobs and seem to travel around these types of jobs.

I'd give it a go if you were thinking about it. There's a lot of work in the Surat\Darling downs with comapnies like Thiess, Laing O Rourke, QGC and Origin.

If you're in Brisbane I'd suggest getting your C4 and you HA certs and apply to someone like Kentz who supply a lot of electrical\instro trades to QGC in the surat\darling downs and beyond.

jimcz

I'm sorry for my naive question but what do RPL and HA stand for?

sparkatrician

No problem

RPL is Recognition Of Prior Learning

HA is Hazardous Areas - Same as CompEx in the UK

derren7

Thanks Sparkatrician. I"m definitely giving it some thought. I trying to avoid the mines having a young family and all that, and I was looking at maybe finding work at water treatment plants or a processing plant but if I'm really restricting myself this way then I may have second thoughts.
Anyway, thanks for the advice, much appreciated.
Kind regards Derren

jimcz

Hello guys,
I'm thinking about taking an Instrumentation and Control course but you got me confused. From reading the comments here I got the impression that CERT 4 is inferior to CERT 3. But when I read the description of this course on some training institutes pages, it looks vice versa.

And also, TAFE NSW allocates 1152 hrs for the course. How could you finish it in "10 classroom days"?

Can somebody shed some light onto it please?

Deyan

To to do the Cert IV Instro course you need to have Cert III Electrician, A grade licence (it's mandatory).

So, Cert III Electrical is inferior to Cert IV Instrumentation.

80% of Instro units are part of Cert III electrical training, you'll get credit for them, no need to repeat them. Almost all the theory part could be done online, in 10 classroom days you will do practical part and assessments only.

PS Now I see you're talking about TAFE NSW. Don't know about the cert III Instro. Sparkies (and 4th year apprentices) over here are doing Cert IV as a natural upgrade of their skills and to get better paid jobs in oil&gas. Never heard somebody's doing cert III Instro and can't find an RTO with that training component in WA.