GC-6005 Climate Generator Documentation
Recovered a forgotten piece of lab equipment by sourcing the manual, learning the machine, and writing step-by-step operating documentation for staff and students
Overview
During my Erasmus at the University of Girona, the industrial automation lab had a professional climate generator — an Ineltec GC-6005 environmental test chamber — that nobody knew how to operate anymore. The machine was in working order; the knowledge of how to use it had simply been lost. My task was to figure it out and leave it in a state where the lab staff and students could actually use it going forward.
I did this working independently, in an environment where the primary language was Spanish. I do not speak it fluently. You adapt.
The Machine
The GC-6005 is a professional environmental test chamber capable of ramping and holding temperature and humidity across a defined test profile. Applications include component qualification testing, material characterisation, and accelerated life testing. The lab had it available but no usable documentation and no one with operational experience of it.
What I Did
The first step was getting hold of proper documentation. I contacted Ineltec directly and requested the digitised version of the operating manual. Once I had it, I worked through the machine systematically — startup sequence, test profile configuration, what the interface actually means, what the safety interlocks do and when they trigger.
Once I understood it, I wrote a clear step-by-step operating guide covering:
- Machine startup and shutdown procedure
- How to define and run a test profile
- What each display state means and how to respond to it
- When to call for maintenance versus what a user can handle themselves
I then walked through the guide with my supervisor and two colleagues who would be using the machine. The session was done in a mix of English and basic Spanish, which worked better than expected.
Why Documentation Matters
A machine that works but that nobody can operate is not useful. The gap between working hardware and a team that can actually use it is almost always a documentation and knowledge-transfer problem. Getting that right — writing something clear enough that someone with no prior experience of the machine can follow it without asking questions — is a skill that transfers directly to any technical support or product engineering role where your audience is not you.
For a role that involves translating technical findings into documentation that customer-facing teams can act on, this is the relevant proof of concept: I can take something complex, understand it thoroughly, and produce material that makes it accessible to others.
TODO: add image at public/projects/gc6005/machine.jpg (photo of the GC-6005 climate chamber)
TODO: add image at public/projects/gc6005/guide.png (screenshot or photo of the step-by-step operating guide)