Help with PLCs

I suggest that you find out where your company buys its Allen Bradley hardware. It's probably from a distributor with an office not too far away from your location. Call them up and ask to speak with the sales rep who specializes in PLCs and HMIs. Ask him/her to come in and give you a quick introduction. Also ask about whatever training they may offer.

There are plenty of people here who will be able to answer specific questions, but this forum is an inefficient medium for general training.

I think the finding a new job option would be my number one choice.

Is your job to play with equipment, maintain an existing system, or design and program a new system? It reall doesn't sound like you have a good direction to go in, however, I will give you great commendations for getting as far as you have.

Your issues are many and few at the same time - one, you have a learning curve. Some people "get it" more than others. I wouldn't expect someone who is absolutely green to generate one rung of code for a week, maybe two or longer.

two - you are obviously operating on a deadline, one that has shortened because two people have already quit the project. In light of issue #1, can you produce enough before the deadline?

"Throwing someone in the deep end" works for people with 20 years experience, but not a greenhorn. What is the particular project, and specs? There has to be an original design document that tells you what the finished product is supposed to do. Look for any type of drawings, and an operational description. The drawings will provide your hardware IO, and the operational description will give you the "brains" of your PLC.

Problem is, you have to translate that.

Re-read my first sentence. good luck.

Ken, I'm going to direct you immediately and firmly to this site:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Your problem isn't in your inexperience, it's in the amount of effort you are putting into communications with the PLCs.net forum.

Take just one of those PanelView questions and make it it's own thread. Post the part number of the PanelView terminal. Describe the cables, and how they are connected to the controller. Note the names and versions of the software you're using. If you are struggling with an error message, post the entire text of the error message, not a paraphrase or excerpt.

I've been in a job a little like yours. In Canada, too. From your description of your boss, you might be working for the same guy.

What I did wrong was burn myself out working all day and night trying to shoulder the company's burden. What I should have done was considered the whole thing to be a training exercise for myself.

The good news, as far as I'm concerned, is that you are using principally Allen-Bradley equipment. A-B has a large majority of market share in Canada and the distributors and field offices are top-notch. There are a lot of A-B experienced people on this Forum who can help you learn a great deal.

So take a deep breath, and let's see that second thread.

Thank you both for giving some pointers. I had some trainning on PLCs but it was the RSlogix simulator from the learning pit.com and I don't mean to be rude but that simulator sofware is really bad! and nothing like the real thing. I got the jist for programming but right now I'm testing components that were bought on ebay to be sold again (if they were workig) basicaly the guy is getting $20 bargan bin stuff and selling it for almost list price... $200 ring a bell for some I/O moduals? I'm going to try this for another week and see how it goes. I'm going to ask for trainning too!

I can write on here about more specific problem in the future

The one big problem I did include there was with the PV software. I was testing a PV600 touch screen I input general info for tag names, node names, and put the push button on the screen to b3/0. I went to download it and in the error screen on my PC it stopped at "check operator terminal"... What does that mean?

Thanks again for your help!

Ken

"Check Operator Terminal"

[clenches teeth]

Maybe... the farking busted scrap-bin surplus touchscreen... is actually... broken.....

Aaaahhh! The light bulb comes on with the proper I/O!

If I understand correctly, you are "test-benching" equipment for resale?

That's a "do-able" and worthwhile activity. I suggest you obtain manuals for the equipment you are testing, and keep it near you at all times. NEVER THROW AWAY A MANUAL on used equipment, until you have worn it out beyond readability.

Next, if you are going to be getting the same equipment often, develop a test bench. At the least, you will have a power supply and an ethernet hub. Convince your boss that you need to have one good chassis of each type he wants to deal in as test fixtures. Always use known good cabling and other equipment to test.

Develop a test program, that will allow you to test modules easily. Wire up a test board using switches and LEDs to test inputs and outputs, OR if you can swing it, use a separate PLC to do all your wired testing, I's to O's, AO's to AI's, etc. I've done this to simulate field equipment during lab testing.

Once you have a repeatable test system, you will be able to work much more efficiently. One thing that will help you is showing your boss that you have the knowledge, then getting him to allow YOU to make the used equipment purchases, based on your knowledge of their likely problems.

I think it's possible for you to make this work, both as a paying job, and to your future in controls. You will gain more knowledge testing and repairing this stuff than you will believe.