The Apprentice

I am very new to the PLC world, but very interested in working with PLCs as a full time job. As a ten year Commercial Electrician I was not introduced to PLC programming and have trouble putting applications in because of my inexperience. My question is there a way to find a company that will hire someone like me and have a time period where they will train me like an apprentice. THANK YOU

Rookie2497,

what plc is most common in your area?
1. goto votech school for some training, not that you can't learn it on your own. it will give you a head start.
2. there are others, download allen bradleys RsLogix 500 Lite version which will only let you program 1 or 2 of their plc's. but you will get the general basics.

others might offer other suggestions.

regards,
james

Rookie,

Do you still have your Commercial Elctrician job, and would you be okay staying there if you had some PLC training?

Do you want to keep being an electrician, or do you want to only do PLC programming? "Working with PLCs as a full time job" sounds very close to giving up electrician work and becoming something else entirely, a programmer or integrater in an office-type environment, working from specifications and drawings and customer phone calls to develop programs to do the customer's job, to run his plant or project, with maybe a trip to the field to trouble-shoot or for final check-out.

Training for the two different jobs is a lot different. I don't think there are too many Electricians that work with PLCs as a full-time job. Maybe a few do. Many electricians specialize in PLCs and are usually the guy in charge of wiring up and trouble-shooting the PLC part of any project. But still they wouldn't be doing it full-time.