IEC 61131-3 textbook or reference

If you were to invest in an IEC 61131-3 textbook or reference of some kind, which would it be?

I'm thinking it would be worthwhile thing to do...after all, its where all PLC standards come from, right?

It really depends on what you need to do with the standard. I would invest in some hardware and programming manuals for the PLC that you want to program.

The following article explains the programming languages:
http://www.automation.com/pdf_articles/IEC_Programming_Thayer_L.pdf

Regards,
Garry
http://www.accautomation.ca

gclshortt said:

It really depends on what you need to do with the standard. I would invest in some hardware and programming manuals for the PLC that you want to program.

The following article explains the programming languages:
http://www.automation.com/pdf_articles/IEC_Programming_Thayer_L.pdf

Regards,
Garry
http://www.accautomation.ca

Click to expand...

Because of where I work access to hardware and manuals is not a problem. The reason I'm asking is just coz curiosity about where all this comes from. There's no simplistic answer to that but it seems getting really familiar with the standards is always good....thank you.

I bought this: Programming Industrial Control Systems Using IEC 1131-3 by R.W. Lewis. ISBN: 978-0-85296-950-2. Copyright is 1998, so there should be an updated version somewhere.

dYoast said:

I bought this: Programming Industrial Control Systems Using IEC 1131-3 by R.W. Lewis. ISBN: 978-0-85296-950-2. Copyright is 1998, so there should be an updated version somewhere.

Click to expand...

Funny, I just bought this online yesterday afternoon.....seems like it is still the go to reference. Even one of my unit managers was telling me that was what he had been accustomed to and hadn't really bothered a great deal to get familiar with other variations of updates to 1131-3. Thanks!

I bought the specification
The problem with this is that few follow the specification exactly. This is where buying the ST guide for the particular PLC you are using would be helpful too.

I second what Peter said. As they said in the Pirates movies: "It's more of a guideline than a rule". Not all vendors offer all of the IEC languages, and when they do they are usually customized/extended. These changes aren't necessarily bad; it often means that they've added additional functionality. Sometimes, though, the differences are just "we did it this way before the standard, why would we change?".

To claim to be compatible with the standard, I think the vendors have to include an IEC 61131-3 compatibility statement, which lists all of the ways they differ from the "official" way of doing things. You could theoretically use this to help determine how close a given platform is to another, but I'm not sure how effective that would actually be.

have a look at codesys, and yes i learned it also from the lewis book.

Isagraf or C#

Same great PLCs you can program with C# or Isagraf!
http://www.icpdas-usa.com/programminglanguages.php