Instructor led PLC training

AGENTTINFOIL

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Jul 2005
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Louisville, KY
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Hey guys...

I am looking for some opinions on instructor led training for Allen Bradley plc's. I am looking at some different options like through my AB Distributor or possibly Rons course. I am not sure which one I would benefit from the most. I have read alot of Rons post from this site and other sites as well, and I am really impressed with what Ron has to offer. But the added cost of attending Rons class is hard to justify, just because of the plane ticket and the week in a hotel. The added additional cost ontop of the course is close to 1000 dollars. Versus the 1600 dollars through my local AB distributor, but the outcome is what matters. and at the end of the day if I would benefit more from Rons class I could justify the cost. Not sure what to do, can anyone give me advise on this, maybe someone that has attended both. I appreciate any input and Ron if you read my post as always I value your opinion. and I hope this is not construed as a sales type post, if it is my appologies just looking to make the right decision.

Travis
 
It depends on what your objectives are.

I believe Ron's course teaches the PLC system. How things work, how to set things up, how to trouble shoot, all hands on. But...it does not teach you a lot about programming.

I may be wrong, and if someone knows better, please correct me.
 
My $0.02:

I have taken ControlLogix System Fundamentals and RSLogix 5000 Basic Ladder Logic Programming from AB. Once again, it's a lot of "How things work, how to set things up, how to trouble shoot, all hands on." There were some logic excercises, but 90% of them did not apply to our company's situation. The instructor would answer some specific application questions, but would remind you that it's not really what that class was for.

Don't know about Ron's classes.
 
Have you inquired of your local community colleges/technical schools? I teach a couple of courses at a local comm. college and their curriculum is written around SLC/micrologix and RSLogix 500. I know some of the schools that are customers of ours are starting to utilize ControLogix as well, and most of the night-time non-credit stuff is cheaper than some of the specialized training courses. If they do, ask questions as to how the course is structured; most of the companies that send maint. people to my classes are not interested in their guys being able to write traffic light code and they want practical training (identify cable/driver for PLC, how do I get online, how do I correlate ladder code with prints, etc). Tell them what you would like to get out of the course and see if they offer any flexibility to the content of the course.
 
mgvol said:
Have you inquired of your local community colleges/technical schools?

Actually I have looked into that an unfortunetly there is nothing like that close to me, the closes college/technical school is in western Kansas " a 4 hour drive from me". my knowledge of PLC's is beyond knowing how to hook things etc. I want to get more in depth on the code side of things. That is why I want to be careful of my choice I do not want to waste company money on a course that I may not benefit from. I have learned alot since I started really messing with plcs, I just want and need to learn more.

Thanks for your replies
 
AGENTTINFOIL said:
I want to get more in depth on the code side of things.

It seems that once you get past the basics and "knowing how to hook things up" that any broadly designed course for the masses would just be more of the same. Beyond that, custom courses for your applications would be the only way to actually learn something. You might as well just spend the money on a support contract for your brand(s) of PLC/software. At that point I personally would recommend the "seat of the pants" training that I and probably many others here recieved. There is no better way to learn than by doing. That what this forum is for... you go till you get stuck, then post your problems here. I'm not sure I have ever seen a specific logic or coding problem go unanswered here. I don't have many posts under my belt, but I have been lurking for a loooooong time.
 
AGENTTINFOIL said:
... maybe someone that has attended both...

Travis,

Next best thing...I have gone to several AB classes and one of the maintenance techs that I work with went to Ron's class.

I enjoyed the AB courses and would recommend them to anyone that has the opportunity and funding, that said I would also recommend Ron's class as well, talking to Ron on the phone prior to the class and talking to Jay after he got back it was worth its weight in gold

Ron was able to cover more what was in need, not just what was in the book, that for me, was what we (my employer) were looking for Jay has taken a much bigger part in the whole trouble shooting out look and it gave him more confidence.

Like I said, I don't want to talk **** about AB, because they were very good courses and I learned a lot and would go again

The best thing? call Ron and talk to him, tell him what your needs are...

BTW the guy that went (Jay) he told me that he would be going back to Ron's class, when the issue of money/funding in the budget came up, he said that he would pay out of his own pocket if necessary...that should say something
 
another epic ... part 1 ...

Greetings to all ...



standard disclaimer: first of all let me say that I always feel slightly “uncomfortable” whenever I use Phil’s excellent forum to discuss the PLC training that I do - because I’m sure that there are some who consider any comments that I make to be “advertising” ... on the other hand, occasionally my PLC courses do get mentioned by others, and in many of those situations I feel that I should make SOME type of personal response ... I can assure you that my feelings will NOT be hurt if Phil decides to edit (or even completely remove) anything that follows ...



also I’ve been away for a few days of vacation – or I would have responded earlier to this thread ...



from AGENTTINFOIL:
I want to get more in depth on the code side of things. That is why I want to be careful of my choice I do not want to waste company money on a course that I may not benefit from.



based on that statement, let me start out by saying that the PLC “boot camp” courses that I normally teach are NOT what you’re looking for ... as others have said, most of my classes are geared towards maintenance technicians who work on systems that are controlled by PLCs ... specifically, these are not intended to be “programming” classes ...



now let me go a step further and say that occassionally I do teach classes for programmers ... at the risk of sounding like “advertising” I’m going to describe a little bit about how these are set up ... but stay tuned – because at the end of this post I’m still going to recommend that you NOT take one of these “programming” classes either ...



one of the main reasons that I don’t teach more of the “programming” type classes is that my boss hates them ... specifically, he doesn’t like the fact that I won’t let any more than two students sign up at a time – and naturally this severely limits his “bottom line” income ... the fact is that teaching “programming” takes a LOT more instructor attention and involvement than other types of classes require ... putting anything more than one or two students in a programming class is a recipe for disaster – at least in my personal opinion ... so although I feel comfortable with up to six (maximum) students in a “troubleshooting” class, I won’t take on more than two (maximum) students at a time in a “programming” class ... and that’s the main reason that you won’t find the specifications listed for a “programming” class on our company website ... the boss doesn’t want to advertise them – because he doesn’t really make enough money when he sells one ...



now what I’m going to do for the rest of this post is simply try to help AGENTTINFOIL nail down the best way to get the training that he’s looking for ...



so just for discussion, let’s suppose that my boss has given us the go-ahead and that you’ve decided to sign up for a “programming” course ... here’s the next step – and this is taken directly from a course description that I recently wrote up for a very good training customer of ours ...



IMPORTANT: In order to optimize the use of classroom time and to insure the effectiveness of this course, students are required to submit a “programming project” to the instructor a minimum of two weeks before the class meets. Subject to the instructor’s final approval, the application specified by this project will serve as the primary focus of the students’ programming exercises. The application may consist of any reasonable type of machinery (real, imaginary, existing, or proposed) which incorporates the programming techniques and objectives of this course. Students may use text, pseudo‑code, outlines, flowcharts, or any combination of these or other methods in detailing the specifications of the application. The project must include detailed sketches of the machinery layout to be used in the HMI/SCADA development phase of the class. A detailed I/O listing is also required. Students are invited to contact the instructor for guidance during this stage of the training.



the basic idea here is that YOU have to tell ME what type of program you want to learn how to write ... and there are MANY different kinds of programs – simply because there are MANY different kinds of systems that PLCs can be used to control ... for example: suppose that we spent all of our class time learning to write a program for something like a conveyor system ... some (many? most?) of the skills that we covered might be of very little use if your first back-at-work assignment turned out to be programming something like an oven application with analog signals and PID control ...



now once I’ve received the “programming project” that you’ve written up, I’ll take a close look at it and decide whether there’s enough “meat-and-potatoes” material there to make a decent class out of ... if there’s not enough substance there, I’ll send it back and suggest that you add something a little bit more challenging ... and if there’s too much stuff to cover in the allotted class time, then I’ll send it back and recommend that you make some cuts here and there ... and here’s a very important part of this particular step in the process: we’ll get your boss involved in the specification of this “project” too ... since he’s the one who’s going to pay the bill, he should definitely have a say-so in the specific type of “programming” skills that you’re supposed to be learning ... once he signs-off on the “programming project” then we'll know that we're on the right track ...



although it’s not completely necessary, one thing that really helps during this stage of the proceedings is for me to take a look at any existing programs that your company might already have in use ... if anything along those lines is available then we might put something like this in the “course objectives” statement:



... cover the skills required to design and write ladder logic programs for Allen‑Bradley PLC‑5 controllers consistent with the layout and complexity of the existing programs LINE2.RSP and LINE4.RSP currently in use in the Acme plant at Anytown, PA ...



the part about “consistent with the layout and complexity” is very important ... that statement helps give us a definite target to shoot for in the area of “format” ... of course in some cases a customer might not have any existing programs to serve as “samples” of form and layout ... but in those cases we’ll come up with some other way of determining just how “simple” or how “sophisticated” a programming approach we’re trying to achieve ...



and here’s where we stand so far ... you, your boss, and I have finally come up with a specific programming project for you to tackle during the class that you’re going to take ... as nearly as possible, this project reflects the specific types of skills that you’ll need to learn during the course ...



now when the class starts on Monday morning, we’ve got our goals laid out and we should be ready to get started ... the main idea is that I’m NOT going to try to teach you “how-to-program-a-PLC” in a one week class ... not even two, three, or four weeks would be enough time to cover that subject properly ... but what we SHOULD be able to do is to work through the techniques and the skills that will be required for you to do the “programming project” that we’ve specified ... and those are the same skills that you will need as you continue in your programming career ...



here’s an analogy:



first suppose that you want to learn a new language – Spanish for example ... so you walk into the classroom on Monday morning armed with a document written in English ... what I’m going to do throughout the class is help you learn how to convert that English document into the equivalent document in Spanish ...



now suppose that you want to learn a new language – Ladder Logic for example ... so you walk into the classroom on Monday morning armed with a document written in English ... what I’m going to do throughout the class is help you learn how to convert that English document into the equivalent document in Ladder Logic ...



that’s my personal approach to teaching “programming” in a nutshell ... when you stop and think about it, there’s quite a difference between this method and the canned projects (traffic light/garage door/etc.) that are used in most other “PLC programming” classes ... but ... I would STRONGLY recommend (in fact almost insist) that a student work through a full series of those types of projects BEFORE coming to my programming class ... the basic skills that can be learned that way are extremely valuable – and they MUST be learned somewhere along the way ... it would be much better to learn them BEFORE the class starts – rather than take up expensive classroom time that could be put to more important use ...



and back to our story ...



now that the “programming project” has been properly specified, one of two outcomes are possible ...



(1) you learn the skills and techniques that you signed up for ... the class will be a success – and my boss will expect your boss to pay the bill ... or ...



(2) you don’t learn those skills and techniques ... the class will be a failure – and your boss pays nothing ... that’s the “money-back” guarantee ...



just be sure to bring your “A” game - this will NOT be a walk in the park ...



continued in the next post ...
 
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part 2 ...

continued from the previous post ...



now let’s go back to AGENTTINFOIL’s original statement:

I want to get more in depth on the code side of things. That is why I want to be careful of my choice I do not want to waste company money on a course that I may not benefit from.



personally I’ve never seen any other approach to designing and conducting a “PLC programming class” with a better chance of making sure that you “do not waste money on a course that you don’t benefit from” ... in most cases it’s the instructor who chooses the material to be covered ... hopefully that material is going to be useful to you once the class is over ... but obviously there are MANY different types of PLC applications (beyond traffic lights, etc.) ... so what are the chances that the standard “one-size-fits-all” approach to learning programming is going to work in your particular situation? ...



I started this post by saying that I do NOT recommend that you take a “programming class” from me ... but I would strongly recommend that you ask any other training company just how much control you (and your boss) will have over the specific content of any course that you might be considering ... if the answer is “not enough” then here’s what I recommend that you do next ...



don’t take a course at all ... not mine ... not anybody’s ... instead just get your training right here on the forum ... if you’ll put the time and the effort into it, you could have the equivalent (or better) of a PLC programming “correspondence course” for free ... here’s the general idea:



go back to that “IMPORTANT: ... submit a programming project ...” section above ... use that outline to make up your own “project statement” and post it in a new thread ... there are many people here on the forum (myself included) who will be happy to help you work through the same types of “programming” exercises (for free) that you’d have to pay some serious money for on the open market ...



the downside: this is going to take a LOT more time – and a LOT more work - to accomplish than the same amount of training in a classroom environment ... but it CAN be done ... and just to be completely honest, I’ve encouraged several people to take this same approach before – both on this and on other forums ... so far, ALL of those people have “fallen-by-the-wayside” long before the project was even close to being finished ... most of them drop out during the “make-the-I/O-list” part ... a few hang on until somewhere in the “specify-the-hardware” phase ... hardly anyone actually makes it to the “let’s-add-a-rung” stage ... like I said, this will NOT be a walk in the park ... but if you REALLY want it, then let’s get started ...



survival tip: be sure to tell us (in DETAIL) exactly what hardware and software you have available to experiment with ... that will have a significant effect on what type of project you’ll be able to tackle ... good luck ... and if you haven’t already done all of the programming projects at www.thelearningpit.com, then my next question is: “why not?” ...



finally ... some remarks about this thread so far ...



from Ken Moore:

I believe Ron's course teaches the PLC system. How things work, how to set things up, how to troubleshoot, all hands on. But...it does not teach you a lot about programming.



well, actually there’s not too much about “how to set things up” either ... that type of operation is mostly done by someone else before my “maintenance technician” type students have a reason to work on the system ... and you’re absolutely correct about “not a lot about programming” ... this is intentional ... most employers would be disappointed if their “maintenance technicians” came back to the plant fully primed with new “programming” skills – but with little or none of the systematic “troubleshooting” skills that they were supposed to learn in my class ... the basic idea is that when the students from my “boot camp” classes get back to the plant, the PLC-controlled machines are sitting there waiting for them – and the “programming” has already been done ... specifically, these guys are NOT expected to “program” the system ... instead they’re expected to keep the machines running – and fix them when they break ... with that in mind, the focus of the “troubleshooting” class that I usually teach is very different from what you’d expect to see in a pure “programming” class ...



from TWControls:

Here is a good thread on Ron's training. I hope you don't mind me referring them Ron

http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?showtopic=8180



certainly I don’t mind, Tim ... thank you for posting the link ...



from jedft:

I have taken ControlLogix System Fundamentals and RSLogix 5000 Basic Ladder Logic Programming from AB. ... There were some logic exercises, but 90% of them did not apply to our company's situation. The instructor would answer some specific application questions, but would remind you that it's not really what that class was for. ... Don't know about Ron's classes.



as always, every class really needs to stay focused on the stated objectives ... that goes for my classes as well as for AB’s – and for everyone else’s too ... personally I try to answer every question that gets asked – just as long as that doesn’t prevent us from covering the “must do” material that we actually came to the class for ... but sometimes you’ve just got to draw a line ...



from mgvol:

Have you inquired of your local community colleges/technical schools? ... Tell them what you would like to get out of the course and see if they offer any flexibility to the content of the course.



EXCELLENT advice – but if I understand correctly, there’s no resource like this close enough to help in AGENTTINFOIL’s situation ... but for any other readers with similar requirements I’d add the following suggestion ... even if there’s no “flexibility to the course content” at your local tech school, there MIGHT be a possibility of a “self-study” arrangement – as long as you’re willing to work mostly “on your own” ... in some cases this approach is the best way to gain access to the hardware and software that you need to further your PLC skills - for a very reasonable “tuition” price ... and offering to write up some “student exercises” for future students to use might help you get a “foot-in-the-door” ... been there – done that ... and here’s a super-secret handshake along these same lines: if you can’t get anything worked out at the “instructor” level, try to strike up a friendship with the school’s “lab technician” ... it’s often AMAZING just how much flexibility you can find at the BOTTOM of the totem pole – even when the TOP won’t bend at all ...





continued in next post ...
 
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part 3 ... conclusion ...

continued from previous post ...



from jedft:

It seems that once you get past the basics ... that any broadly designed course for the masses would just be more of the same. Beyond that, custom courses for your applications would be the only way to actually learn something.



that’s PRECISELY my point in the beginning of this post ... “PLC programming” is just too broad a subject to cover without a carefully defined set of goals to shoot for ...



more from jedft:

... I personally would recommend the "seat of the pants" training that I and probably many others here received. There is no better way to learn than by doing. That’s what this forum is for ... you go till you get stuck, then post your problems here. I'm not sure I have ever seen a specific logic or coding problem go unanswered here.



EXCELLENT advice ... I hope that I was successful in making those same points in this post ... the only thing that I’ll add is this: the “seat of the pants” method generally involves a certain amount of “trial-and-error” before everything finally comes together ... and in most cases out in the real world, those “errors” that you “tried” can cost a LOT of time and money ... if your employer is willing - and able - to foot the bill for this approach, then by all means take him up on it ... I’m in full agreement with jedft ... there is no better way to learn than by doing ... the human mind is built that way ...



from geniusintraining:

I have gone to several AB classes and one of the maintenance techs that I work with went to Ron's class. I enjoyed the AB courses and would recommend them to anyone that has the opportunity and funding ...



no argument there ... as long as the objectives meet your needs, then the benefits of the training should be adequate ... as for funding, the classes that I offer cost just about the same as AB’s ... and in some cases just a little bit more ...



more from geniusintraining:

... I would also recommend Ron's class as well ... talking to Jay after he got back - it was worth its weight in gold ... Jay has taken a much bigger part in the whole troubleshooting outlook and it gave him more confidence.



thank you for the kind comments and for the recommendation, GIT ... and I think I’ll close out with a few thoughts on the “confidence” aspect of my training that you just mentioned ...



in my personal opinion, the type of technical training that we’re discussing here is totally worthless - unless the student has gained enough CONFIDENCE to apply what he has learned ... without the confidence to apply it, ANY amount of knowledge is practically useless ... this brings to mind the main reason that my boss has come up with his favorite “PLC Boot Camp” method of describing my classes ... he remembers the first time he heard me teach several years ago – and says that my approach often sounds more like a military drill sergeant than like a technical instructor ...



when I went through basic training (US Air Force, 1966), we all had to run the “Obstacle Course” ... today the sign calls it the “Confidence Course” – but it’s the SAME old wall – and the SAME old rope – and the SAME old everything else ... personally I share the military’s opinion that the only way to gain real confidence is to overcome the obstacles that confront us ... and sometimes people NEED a grumpy old drill sergeant to sort of “encourage” them over-the-wall and up-the-rope ...



I really appreciate the comment that “Jay said that he would pay out of his own pocket if necessary” to come to another of my classes ... it may sound corny, but things like that go a long way towards making all of my efforts worthwhile ... thank you again, Mark - and Jay ...



finally ... most of this post has been spent describing how I personally go about setting up a “PLC programming” class – and then talking our original poster OUT OF taking one ... so you might be wondering just who the heck WOULD ever need something like this? ... answer: it’s invariably an employer with one – or maybe two – new “PLC programmers” on his staff who just don’t seem to be able to pull a project together and “make it happen” ... the employer is willing to invest (not “spend”) the money required to move his crew beyond the “traffic light” stage ... if this all works out successfully, then the price of the plane ticket - and the hotel bill – and the class itself - will all fall squarely into the “peanuts” column ... and if it doesn’t work out successfully, then the price of the class is zero ... yes, I *DO* love a challenge ...
 
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Try Centec which is in Greenville, SC. May be too far to consider but they provide excellent training on most of the A-B processors. It is comprehensive from programming to hands on troubleshooting. I believe they are on the web, just Google Centec.
 

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