Where to begin?????

I am about to begin an Industrial Electricity course that will eventually get pretty heavy into PLC's in a few months. I am not completely ignorant about the subject, but do realize that I will soon be in over my head. Can anyone suggest some material for self-study before the formal stuff starts?

Start here.

http://www.plcs.net/contents.shtml

Then here.

http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?autocom=downloads&showfile=156

Do you know what brand your school uses?

www.thelearningpit.com has some little programming exercises you can work with for free for about 15 days ... check out the LogixPro stuff ... it's based on Allen-Bradley type systems ...

and my distinguished colleague Mickey is correct ... the more you tell us about what you'll be working with, the more detailed help we can offer ...

welcome to the forum ...

The classbook title is Futuretek PLC's. I think it's focus is on Allen Bradley.

I've seen the catalog for the FutureTek trainers - but never had a chance to check out their textbook before ... please keep us posted on how this works out for you ...

tip: you also need to go beyond saying just "Allen-Bradley" ... is it SLC-500 - or CompactLogix - or ControlLogix? ... each platform has quite a few differences from the others ...

I will give all the detail I can when it becomes available. Thanks for the support. I am beginning to feel the heady tonic of this new world the more I hear "you need to be more specific" and "they are not all the same".

I am beginning to feel the heady tonic of this new world

Click to expand...

well, wait till you find out that some of the official books are wrong ... for example: check out page 61 from the CompactLogix User Manual ...

http://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/um/1769-um011_-en-p.pdf

this page is a Cut-and-Paste error from the larger ControlLogix system manual ... the "data update" flowchart shown here is completely wrong for the smaller CompactLogix platform ...

stay on your toes, dude – and trust no one ...

Why do you think you will soon be "in over your head?" You are taking courses that are designed to teach you the skills you will need, not test you on what you don't know. Since you are taking Industrial Electricity courses, learn about exactly that, Industrial Electricity. I can't stress enough how much a good understanding of ELECTRICITY will help you with your PLC skills.
In the mean time, try out some of the simulators that have been mentioned, and try to read up as much as you can, but don't underestimate yourself, when you get signed up for the PLC course, they will point you in the right direction, that's the whole idea of the course. Good Luck.