What should I study?

I'm an instrumentation tech who has a fair amount of experience in PLC's and programming. I want to move into this line full-time and get a qualification behind my name to move into this directly, but I'm not sure what I should study. What courses/diplomas/degrees would you guys recommend? What have you done, and what did you find the most effective and informative?

If you are interested in an associates degree I would suggest looking into the field of Mechatronics. It is a combination of mechanical and electronics. Classes include (depending on the college) instrumentation, PLC's, electronics, gear boxes (which includes bearings & drives), hydraulic, pneumatic, & robotics. It gives an all around maintenance education.

PLC's are so much more than PLC's any more. They all have the capability of using tools like Visual Basic, If you were to use Allen Bradley FactoryTalk SE software for HMI programming you cant even change a page from the PLC unless you write a Macro or add VB to something like a numeric display.
I would suggest you go after something like Computer Science degree.

I tend to agree Smoke. I was tilting towards that initially, but since the industry I work in is very specialized (robotics and automated sample preparation/analysis) I was concerned I might pigeon-hole myself i.e. Not many other company's have requirements for in-depth C-script. But I tend to agree with you. I'm sure PLC's are going to become more and more integrated into the computer world. Thank you.

I got my degree in Computer Science. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I did, but it's not all that directly applicable. It's a great foundation to continue learning from, especially if you're into projects. Some concepts do carry over, though.

In retrospect I may have done EECS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), which has a bit less discreet and abstract math, a little less theory, and a whole lot more circuits/EE/architecture/physics.

That sounds interesting surferb. I might definitely look into that. I'm not sure if our slightly sub-standard universities here in South Africa would offer the course though. While looking into it, I saw they are revising the entire curriculum for 2010. I'll have to wait till they post the new curriculum to see what my options are.

You must understand what you are going to control

I got my degree in EE and CE ( computer engineering ). Most of what I use I learned in my first two years of college. When I went to college the first two years were pretty much the same for any engineering.

The CS spends too much time on compilers and data bases which is good if you are writing compilers and SQL servers/cliets. Few will ever need to write a compiler.

Our local university offers mechatronics courses and degree. This seems to be a very practical course for those that must design and control machinery.
Good control people usually the only people that know how the whole system works.

Finally, find a good system integrator to work for a few years. You can learn from the more experience guys.

what should i study

I tend to agree with Vettedrivr because in todays fast change in technology, a combination of mechanical and electronics eng. is a plus.so i advise you to take mechatronic eng. course digree level.

Not exactly

CS does a lot of discreet and abstract math, theory of computation, algorithms, and "programming language" studies (which includes lexers, parsers, and compilers). It has more "CS electives" which cover: operating systems (file systems, inodes, kernel stuff), databases (little to do with SQL, mostly algebra, relational versus object oriented, etc), AI, more architecture, etc.

The concepts are fundamental, just like in EE. You'll be as likely to apply your CS material directly as if you design motion controllers like Pete. Consider shunt windings E&M calculations, entropy, etc for the "you're not likely to be doing this".

All said, I think EE or ME aligns with controls engineers (PLC Programmers) more than CS, unless your focus is on HMI/SCADA systems/enterprise integration, etc, in which case you're choosing a software route.

Peter Nachtwey said:

The CS spends too much time on compilers and data bases which is good if you are writing compilers and SQL servers/cliets. Few will ever need to write a compiler.

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Math!!!!

I am getting by.... but I wish I had more math.

I read some of the post (Peter) and get lost... I use math every day and most of the time I am WAY over my head and it takes ten times longer then what it should, it works out in end but I still wish had a mathematics degree

Then I may be able to figure out how to tune a controller

Consider ones future.

I am going to start a Mechatronics engineering course this August. The Mechatronics lab has mini automation lines and robots, which one programs to get real hands on experience. From what other people have told me; it sounds like a good course for people who are interested in automation. I think the real question one needs to ask their self; is “What do I need to know to get my area of responsibility up and running ASAP”? When a production line goes down, managers start to get very upset and their tempers flare. At this point the only thing mangers want, is the product to properly move; they do not want to hear excuses or explanations, they just want to know” how much longer”? I think a person needs to have a very good understand of equipment, how it all works together and what controls it. No matter what kind of automation or computer classes a person takes; it will benefit ones personal knowledge which can be applied when certain situations come about. One has to always want to learn and improve their knowledge. We do not have a lot of extra time, so one has to get the most out of their education which will help them in their current or future career. So my suggestion is to have the knowledge and training to get the line going in the least amount of time. One also has to consider what they want to do in their future for a living? Hope this helps.
Sincerely:
Maintenance Man.

Maintenance Man - Mechanitronics sounds really cool
geniusintraining - The math Pete covers for motion control is all covered as "basic, lower division" for any engineering program worth it's weight. I'm not saying it's "easy" - he gets into what I consider pretty sophisticated applications of it. For even a BA in math, they dive way off the deep end with respect to this. Upper division classes focus more on: proofs, theory, and abstract topics - number theory, set theory. For example, they'll build the set of all "natural numbers" (1, 2, 3, ...) and prove that it's the same cardinality (set "size") as "integers" (...-2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3...). Even the "standard" classes: algebra, calculus, geometry, differential equations, go...shall we say way outside the realm of what a controls engineer would use.

bottom line: no math degree required. You'll get more than enough in your engineering program - especially if you're interested in applying it.

surferb said:

Maintenance Man - Mechanitronics sounds really cool
geniusintraining - The math Pete covers for motion control is all covered as "basic, lower division" for any engineering program worth it's weight.

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I would say you are right most of the time but I don't bother the post the hard stuff here because I know I wouldn't get an answer. I have a math problem posted on sci.math and I haven't got any decent replies. You can see I have replied to myself as I solve different different parts of the problem.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.math/browse_frm/thread/716d4f8846f86425#
I can make this a Friday quiz but I don't think I would get an answer. I know there are some very good mathematicians there on sci.math and sci.math.symbolic. Since I am making progress they probably think I don't need their help.

bottom line: no math degree required. You'll get more than enough in your engineering program - especially if you're interested in applying it.

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Aren't there applied math courses? I wish that some aspect were covered more thoroughly. Some math I have never used but the chain rule, product rule, parametric equations, first and second order differential equations etc are all learned in the first two years. I remember taking some linear algebra courses that were a waste of time. A really good course that I took my senior year was on numerical analysis.

Much I have had to learn on my own and weren't taught when I went to schools. Cubic splines, quintic splines, optimizing, interpolating, digital filters etc were all learned long after college.

It is good to learn how to use a CAS ( computer algebra system ). These a allow on to solve difficult problems with out getting bogged down in the mechanics of math.

I know you remember this since you were the only one to get the answer:
http://www.deltamotion.com/peter/Maxima/UnderMorePressure.html
I never solve these problems by hand. I always use a CAS. In this case I used wxMaxima. I now have this example documented forever.

I should plot data.

That's true - you'll get good (applicable) math classes through the physics dept (applied math, and they do a lot with differential equations) and if there are specifically named "applied math" classes (there weren't at my school).

I got the software exposure accompanied with my linear algebra class (first 2 years, "lower division"). We used Matlab and Mathematica - anything similar is a powerful tool.