Help for a beginner!

I'm currently a electrician and I am soon to start in the plc field and was wondering what tools are necessary to have for the hands on work. Thanks

Tenacity and resilience!

Safety first and Always.

You'll need your usual sparky hand tools. A decent Fluke. A loop calibrator/simulator. Laptop, leads, software and manuals.

Your best tool: the confidence to ask when you need help!


.

A big hammer comes in handy

A bible to get the program to work

A hat to cover the bald spot

Some magic to make the program work

A brick wall is not needed... you will find them on your own

Beer... lots of beer

Someone to tell you how to do things even if they don't have any idea:teacher:


And last but not least... about 200,000 friends to help you when you get stuck :site:

Very well said, GIT!

Thanks for the info

Most of GIT's suggestions are things I need on my current job. I'll be looking for more of this good advice later!

Someone to tell you how to do things even if they don't have any idea:teacher:

Amen to that

Had a plant Engineer come out with a list of things that needed to happen on startup day and first on the list was make a backup of the program we "Ordered"

He thought we ordered the program for a built in house machine ready to go.

Plant engineer was his title. Buisness management was his background. Go figure.

I always wondered why I was starting to get a bald patch on the top of my head ! I came to the conclusion it must have been the headboard ! Now I know why I,ve always got a headache to !

Good Luck

You're way ahead of the game Trouble. Understanding ohms law as you know is the beginning of all this. Writing a Ladder Logic Program or Instrustion List is something that takes practice, time and experience. There are many talented people in here that can answer any question you might have. My advice is to keep it simple at first. As for tools Silva Foxx is steering you right. Enjoy your new adventure in the world of PLC programming. Some of these guys can work magic with them.

Just take some modern PLC (not S...tic), maybe A-B, or even better Sixnet.

You can load maybe some examples and then try to examine that.

i can say.. if you examine some plc, next one is not so different.
( but A-B is new for me )
Allways there is in and out. Switch, or measurement and relay, or current- output.

My job currently uses the GE Fanuc 90-30 series and the versa max. I am looking to find some manuals to go along with these. I found one online by Stephen P. Tubbs called "Programmable Logic Controller PlC Tutorial GE Fanuc." Is this one worth looking into or do you suggest a different one?

I also am an electrician and like you decided to get up to date.

Good referance material is worth its weight in gold. Bad referance material is not worth powder to blow to hell.

I started with Melores books (borrowed my bosses for frugality).
I recommed these highly.

Checked out a couple thru the local library. Great for frugality and for seeing if book is worth the money. Found couple good ones BUT they were Allen Bradley.

So see if your local library can get it for you. They may not be willing to purchase BUT there is interlibrary loan.

Dan Bentler

trouble said:

My job currently uses the GE Fanuc 90-30 series and the versa max.

Click to expand...

Have you tried searching this site for "90-30" and "versa max" (separate searches)? If not give it a go! If you do you will quickly see that any responses by Steve Bailey are "golden nuggets". You can also go to the profile link I posted above click on "stats", click on Find all posts by Steve Bailey to see many responses from Steve.

Wow, Vaughn. Thank you for the kind words.

Trouble,

I've never seen that book. My first impression is that it is a little pricey. The VersaMax Micro/Nano instruction set is fundamentally the same as that of the 90-30 and VersaMax modular PLCs, so what you learn from the tutorial will apply to the PLCs in your facility.

All GE Fanuc manuals are available online. Start here:

http://support.gefanuc.com/support/index?page=home&view=AUTOMATION

There are examples in some of the manuals, but nobody will accuse them of being a tutorial.

If you don't have access to a PLC to practice on, follow the link in GeniusinTraining's signature.

PLCTrainer.net

His GE Fanuc trainer is an older GE Fanuc Micro PLC, but it uses almost the same instruction set as the 90-30 and VersaMax. The biggest difference is that it doesn't support floating-point arithmetic. If you do have a PLC available, check out the "HMI Simulations" at PLCTrainer.net. The simulations mimic the operation of the machine and you have to write a PLC program to control it.

Hello friend,

here is my advice.

Eagerness to learn and patience.

do you really want the headache!