Reading Material

Can anyone rcommend training ( probably paying out of pocket) to learn PLCs?? I watched enough tutorials on the web and understand the basic ladder logic. ie toggling a sw, writting to a bit and scan order, etc. Now I'd like to get a little more advanced. Some suggest creating a state machine 1st. Trail and error sure doesn't work!! Can't understand how you go from a state machine to RLL. Tried something simple like having 3 different colored lamps ( red, yellow, green) and lighting them one at a time for 3 sec. Now I need to understand State machine to RLL.
I have over 20 yrs test equipment backgrd. ( SW and HWD)
Thanks

Get yourself a PLC Simulator program that will run on your personal computer. Then you can work student problems until you understand what is going on. LogixPro is a good one for the Allen Bradley RSLogix PLCs, and there are many more.

Because there are now so many different brands and models, you first should decide on a model of PLC that you will most likely use later, and train on that one first. There is no such thing as a "generic" PLC, but there is generic PLC training (which will not qualify you to program ANY plcs).

How about Phil's books? Click on the flashing field on top of this page for more info.

Kind regards,

My Co bought an Automationdirect DL06 PLC and 3 lamps. I watched the 11 part series ( by Ron Beauford) from Allen Bradley on the web. Never would have gotten as far as I did w/o it. The books at the top of the page are good but I need some of part 1 and some of part 2. So I may just buy them. Thanks for the suggestions...

I agree with Lancie1. LogixPro is a very good place to start. Its under $100 and has some good example project to work through. Also research using grafcet,it will help you learn to structure your programs before you write them. Good luck

Thanks...