PLC Training

Hello,

I work for a Water District and we are going to be needing some people to maintain our SCADA system. I have about a year to prepare for this demand. I know nothing about PLC's and want to learn everything. I have worked with computers for a long time and have always like electronics. I am going to take an on line course through George Brown College. It's the best thing I could find that offered some quick and convenient training. I also want to make a test bench at home. I have an irrigation system at home and thought about making a PLC to control that and adding rain sensors to make it more complex. What equipment do you think I should try to find. The PLC's my work uses are AB's Controllogix, PLC-5 and SLC 500. I look forward to your replies and thanks in advance for your assistance.

Billy Gilbert

Contact your local distributor, they probably can provide some training for a fee. We work with ours all the time for training.

Who maintains your current control systems? Anyone?

What are you using for SCADA? You'll need training on databases and other software that you are using to aquire data. There is a lot to learn!

At the very top of the page is a link: Learn PLCs. Phil has put together some great introductory tutorials and other resources to learn from.

After you have been through that, then check here for the Hugh Jack book. http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?download=156 This gets more technical and is not for the brand new beginner.

At some point you are going to have to get some hands on training. This is where you will want to contact your AB distributor to find out about training in your area.

Last, for the best training there is, check out the training courses taught by our resident Guru, Ron Bearufort at http://www.ind-info.com/

So is your SCADA system going out to bid? I know a great company that handles just about all your needs in the SCADA / PLC department. It's the company I work for so I am a little biased.

You can look us up on the web at http://www.dcreng.com/

Just a little help if you need it.

Billy
IF you are from Marysville Washington, then I would recommend looking into North Seattle Comm College. They teach Allen Bradley (Rockwell). I took six months there (two semesters). I was able to design my own curriculum and learned a lot. The cost for one semester is nearly that of only several days from a Seattle vendor. The person to talk with is Frank Jump.

Dan Bentler

Thanks for everybodys help. My work did put the system out for bid. We are located in Lynnwood Washington. www.alderwoodwater.com Thanks again for your help and I look forward to further talks as I progress in this field.

Billy