Siemens Certified Programmer Exam

Puddle

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Mar 2022
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I've recently been on some official Siemens training and I'm planning to attain certification in programming TIA Portal as soon as I can talk my company into paying for it.

Talking to some of the people on my course, they were telling me that people are failing this exam frequently, like people have failed 3 and 4 times.

I'm just wondering if anybody here has sat the exam, as the requirements don't look too complicated.

Course link here:
https://www.sitrain-learning.siemens.com/UK/en/rw19205/Siemens-Certified-Programmer-in-TIA-Portal
 
Wow, 3 days plus an exam on the forth, that is a bit much, probably ok for people who have had exposure to the platform but it does seem too much in such a little time.
I did the S5 (Think it was called PL1 in the 80's) I found that apart from a few little things I did not know I seemed to know more than was being taught & that was 5 days, no motion or safety though. I suppose it depends on the questions in the exam but without knowing this course I still think it is too much to take in.
 
I think it's just a practical programming assignment on one of their training rigs. The ones on the course I've been on (Programmer 2) had an S7-1500, ET200, Comfort panel, G120 drive and little conveyor model.

The contents of the course were a bit more basic than I was expecting, having already had to use all those items in the past. I did find a few basics that I wasn't aware of though, so that helped. I think what they're calling motion control is just drive control via Profinet using the motion control technology objects and it's not a complicated process.

The prerequisite for the course is that you must have done the programmer 3 course, although that has just changed in the last few months as the last time I looked you must have done programmer 1, 2, 3 and a two day refresher which adds up to about £10k in course fees.
 
As I said, the one I did was in the 80's some of those technologies were not implemented as much, i.e. motion & safety, I found the course very easy, but then again I had been programming S5 for some time, the company I worked for, the course again was required, they were one of the first (if not the first) in the UK to become an approved Siemens systems partner, I would imagine it is not going to be that simple but who knows. I was lucky that I had worked with a couple of guys that were ex Siemens engineers I learnt things that are not in the manuals. Perhaps others here have some experience of these latest courses.
 
According to the description, "Your skills from SIMATIC programming training (courses TIA-PRO1 - TIA-PRO3) will be refreshed and consolidated.", this course is a refresher followed by a test of info taught in the three other classes. I would think that if someone invested time and money in TIA-PRO1, TIA-PRO2 & TIA-PRO3, there would be some practical use of that knowledge prior to taking this certification course. If you simply took the certification course alone or the TIA-PRO1-3 courses and then the cert course without practical use, you may have trouble passing a certification test.
 
I do not know about the TIA certification. But...I do know the Siemen PCS-7 certification. Similar situation. 3 days of course work, followed by exam. You can skip the course work and just take the exam if you like. However, the exam is based on what Siemens considers best practice. So, if there are multiple ways of doing something, and you use the non-preferred way, you will not get credit. Most folks that take the exam have years of experience, the classes mostly teach you the Siemens way. To be a Siemens preferred partner, at least two of your staff have to be Siemens Certified.
 
It's great to see this rather than the dubious "Certificate of Attendance" I see being posted on other forums.
 
If you simply took the certification course alone or the TIA-PRO1-3 courses and then the cert course without practical use, you may have trouble passing a certification test.

Agreed. If your only exposure to PLCs is the contents of those courses, you're going to struggle. The training rigs are all pre-wired for one thing. I remember doing a very basic PLC course as an apprentice and having to wire up all the IO and being shown what would happen if you got it wrong.

However, the exam is based on what Siemens considers best practice. So, if there are multiple ways of doing something, and you use the non-preferred way, you will not get credit.

That's worrying. There's ten ways of doing everything and everybody does it differently. There was recently a thread on how to best program a single button latch-unlatch and every answer was completely different. I know for a fact that the way I do things isn't going to be the neatest or best way, but it's all kept simple and noted up so somebody else can easily read it.

It's great to see this rather than the dubious "Certificate of Attendance" I see being posted on other forums.

It's Certificate of Participation and I will not be getting it framed.
 
...the exam is based on what Siemens considers best practice. So, if there are multiple ways of doing something, and you use the non-preferred way, you will not get credit.
That is the most Siemens thing I have ever read :ROFLMAO:
 
They spent some time drilling into IEC compliance, which means all FC and FB must not use any tags external to themselves so they can be used in other projects if required. I can kind of see if for some stuff, but you can't standardise everything. It makes it a pain because if you use a timer inside an FB and declare it in the wrong way, you're not compliant because that timer is then referencing a DB.
 
They spent some time drilling into IEC compliance, which means all FC and FB must not use any tags external to themselves so they can be used in other projects if required.
This makes sense

I can kind of see if for some stuff, but you can't standardise everything. It makes it a pain because if you use a timer inside an FB and declare it in the wrong way, you're not compliant because that timer is then referencing a DB.
What is wrong with using a timer inside a FB. They are both FBs with static memory to hold state.
 
You could delcare the timer as either a multiple instance or with it's own instance DB - the latter being non-preferred.
 
What is wrong with using a timer inside a FB. They are both FBs with static memory to hold state.

Ahhhh this is where it gets tricky. By default, a timer will create a new DB for itself, therefore if you've used that timer in an FB, you couldn't just copy and paste it to a new project and expect it to work as that timer DB will not exist. If you declare your timer as an instance, the data is stored inside of the FB and because it then doesn't need anything external to the FB it would be compliant.
 
Why would you have a separate db for the timer ever when you're doing a multi-use fb? I think it is correct to not credit the task if it's not done properly to the assignment :)
 
Why would you have a separate db for the timer ever when you're doing a multi-use fb? I think it is correct to not credit the task if it's not done properly to the assignment :)
The only issue is that the Siemens programming software by default creates a unique instance DB for the IEC timer when you drag-and-drop an IEC timer into a ladder rung.
So if you are not observant you may not catch it when this happens.
IMO it is a minor niggle with the programming software, and the programmer should be aware what he is doing.
 

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