AB portable training workstations

Hey all

I am looking for portable training workstations. Reasons are as follows

1. We have an unspent education/training budget that will expire at the end of March. There is a decent amount of money being left on the table.

2. I have one person in maintenance and one intern that I would like to have something for them to work with in the Studio 5000 realm.

3. These style of cases are very convenient and store easily. Of course they travel well for those times I am stuck in a hotel room without my Xbox 1....

4. I know that I can purchase individual components and my AB supplier and I have a good relationship and we talked about this. However I do not wish to have a nema type 12 metal enclosure etc...that is not really what I am looking for.

5. So while they are doing the due diligence on getting me pricing etc, I have one issue and that is time. Money has to be spent and item received by March 31st. So if on their end it cannot be provided in that time frame, I would then purchase individual components and look for a case to build in.

So that is my question, does anyone have or know of a storefront that sells these? I am searching right now and I have gotten some results...I thought to ask on here due to the experience and maybe someone knows or has had to do this.

Thanks in advance for any help or direction.
Stu

Not sure how portable they are, but take a look at link ...

http://www.plccable.com/allen-bradley-1/

Thanks, not a case but pre-built boards. I know that this can be fabricated and save money but at this time I have no time...

Again thanks for the link, flight cases are available and one of these may just fit in one, therefore it is now portable.

Check this Advanced PLC Training System.

Thanks again for the responses, I did find a place that has what I am looking for. Probably not on the cheap side, however the guy I talked to really came across as having pride in their work. They build cases for AB, ABB, Siemens etc and a host of other stuff.

Anyways
http://www.badgercase.com/

Badger is the company and some of you may have heard of them. From what I am told I just send them the components (PLC, HMI, Drives, servo etc) and a design schematic for what wiring I want and they take it from there.

Turn around is 2 weeks. If anyone is interested as to what this ends up costing me or how the quality ends up being let me know.

Again thanks

snordvikqplas said:

Turn around is 2 weeks. If anyone is interested as to what this ends up costing me or how the quality ends up being let me know.

Click to expand...

Im interested... 2 weeks is very fast for a custom design

snordvikqplas said:

flight cases are available and one of these may just fit in one, therefore it is now portable

Click to expand...

Yes we have a lot of people put our trainers into pelican case http://www.pelican.com/us/en/pro/products/watertight-protector-hard-cases/

Thanks for the referral Mickey!

Did your AB supplier tell you about Rockwells training workstations? We had the GuardLogix and Kinetix6500 units for a project and if anything they were built to last. Rockwell seems to have a training workstation for almost any application you can think of:

http://www.rockwellautomation.com/global/products/training/workstations/overview.page?

What I'd rather not think of is the pricing... On the positive side you won't have to spend time making schematics, selecting and shipping devices and you would probably get a system that is known to work together and match Rockwell training literature.
I think the CompactLogix workstation is pretty comprehensive, it is fitted with most of the components that one may come around on a daily base.

We order the parts for our test rig and built our own. This should be within even the most basic maintenance departments remit.

janner_10 said:

We order the parts for our test rig and built our own. This should be within even the most basic maintenance departments remit.

Click to expand...

I built my training rig from parts on eBay... you can still get good bargains.

Start with the essentials, chassis, power supply, one processor, a couple of I/O modules, ethernet module if needed. Add other modules as and when needed, to spread the cost and "buy by justification".

Sounds like you found a source already, but here are more options. Amatrol makes mobile training cases with AB 5000 units. Also check out Labvolt.

I build semi-custom portable training equipment. Delivery in March would be a problem, though.

Finally came out of my rabbit hole. Thanks for the replies, always appreciated to get multiple leads.

Yes I did get a quote back from Rockwell on a Kinetix 6500 station, while the price was high I would say that you get what you pay for.
I also parted out all items and what a custom case build would cost and this was a couple thousand less than AB.
Pros and cons to both, on the separate item build I would have to spend time in design as mentioned above but it could be more "custom" to my needs.
AB is a nice finished product but there are some items on there that add to the cost that you may not need or want.

I was scrambling to not let 30k fall of the table at the end of the fiscal. Problem I ran into was HR at our headquarters could not understand how an "item" as they put it is something that falls under training. Explain all I want as to the longevity and flexibility they would much rather spend double on classes etc. Oh well, money falls off table......

I do appreciate all of the leads as I have not quit in my push for these type of workstations.

Again thanks for you guys time

Stu