expanding plc knowledge and skills

AlfredoQuintero said:

I would recommend that you have a look at Codesys....

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Ditto and then find a project that you can automate.
Definitely buy your own PLC.



I meet a guy that was making beer in his garage. He showed me pictures and there was a PLC for temperature control.
Some people automate model rail roads.
Programming a combination lock where 5 correct numbers must be entered in sequence will help you with state machines.
Teach the computer to play NIM.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=nim+game+play&ia=web


I first learned to program writing games.

Automation Direct has now release Productivity Suite V3.8 Software.
This now has a simulator.
https://community.automationdirect.com/s/question/0D53u00002O6jwACAR/productivity-suite-v38-software-release
Regards,

When I was starting in PLC world, following Cisco's CCNA course helped me the most to understand networks and PLC communication. PLC programming proficiency will come with time but you need good fundamentals in order to understand how things work under the hood.

Hey Bobobodopalus,

I can relate somewhat to where you are now and trying to find ways to learn.

I started my engineering career as an aircraft technician and had no training or knowledge of PLC's. I did a basic PLC introduction course as part of resettlement but didn't give me the practical learning I needed.

I was fortunate enough to be employed by Toyota UK who liked ex-forces people and did a lot of in-house training. But their PLC's were Toyopuc own PLC's and not any of the main brands you see, like Rockwell, Siemens, Omron. It did give me some more in depth PLC experience such as making programme changes and fault finding.

Moving onto my current workplace, I managed to get Siemens and Omron PLC intro courses which helped with what I needed on-site. I always had my eye on doing more than minor "frigs" and fault finding and pursued learning more off my own back.

YouTube, this forum and doing some small online courses (I think I used a company called Scantime for some online courses that were reasonably priced). These days I know there's a lot of Siemens TIA stuff on YouTube which makes it quite easy to learn if you have access to the software and tools.

I invested in my own laptop for work so I could install software and take it home to learn. I utilised failed PLC's (usually just a faulty output or input) to play about with and go online, network, etc. A lot of what I learnt was from playing around and trying things out. It was fun to do! I appreciate that software, especially Siemens software can be expensive to purchase. That can be a problem for self-learners like ourselves.

Now, I've been promoted to look after our onsite PCS7 DCS system as I'm the only one who showed enough interest and learnt enough about it to be considered. Keep learning in whatever way you can, even if the company won't invest where you want to learn, it will pay you back eventually with opportunities.

And good luck with it all!

If I can help further in any way, reach out to me.

I agree with Leem2209, I have been in automation for about 40 years, fortunately even from the start I worked for a systems house so had exposure to many of the different brands out there, the more brands you become familiar with the better. The problem with working for a manufacturing plant is that most do tend to stick with a particular brand and often do not like upgrading to the latest tech, however, in saying that, some companies have no specs for equipment and will buy plant with what ever is the current brand the supplier uses, This can give you a chance to get comfortable with different brands.

Peter Nachtwey said:

Ditto and then find a project that you can automate.
Definitely buy your own PLC.



I meet a guy that was making beer in his garage. He showed me pictures and there was a PLC for temperature control.
Some people automate model rail roads.
Programming a combination lock where 5 correct numbers must be entered in sequence will help you with state machines.
Teach the computer to play NIM.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=nim+game+play&ia=web


I first learned to program writing games.

Click to expand...

I took the Model Railroad route to learn how to program.



https://www.nepaview.com/model-train-plc-project.html


I have learned a lot doing this so far and when I got stuck with a problem I found some good help here.


Mike

Thanks for all of the replys!
i would quite like to get my hands on a plc just to toy around with, i suppose i'll keep my eyes and ears open if any pop up on the cheap.
as it happens im being passed a project at the end of the year which is a one off job that i will need to use codesys, so i better get started.
at this point i would call myself fairly proficient with cx programmer but only using more basic functions, i have created some FB's in ST and ladder, but i will keep learning whenever i have some time, might be a good time to find a plc to do some xmas decorations or something.

my main "fear" of the way i've learned is someone will one day look at my work and be horrified at the way i have gone about things.

my main "fear" of the way i've learned is someone will one day look at my work and be horrified at the way i have gone about things.

Click to expand...

Several times in my career I've had to work on machines I programmed years earlier and my reaction was usually, "what the hell was I thinking?"

Steve Bailey said:

Several times in my career I've had to work on machines I programmed years earlier and my reaction was usually, "what the hell was I thinking?"

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haha yes i'm already doing at at something i've done a month or 2 ago.
usually goes something like "what bloody idiot made this"... oh yeah me

gclshortt said:

I agree with you Gene.
This wil be a welcomed feature. It will happen in release version 3.8.
Garry

Click to expand...

V3.8.0.14 has been released with built-in simulator.
https://www.automationdirect.com/support/software-downloads#main-content

eBay (fleaBay) is a source for spare PLCs; I have offered 40-60% of "buy now or best offer" listings and, along with several rejections, gotten a couple of usable systems (MicroLogix 1100 and S7-1214). The MicroLogix is programmed with RSLogix Micro Starter Lite, which is a freebie (along with RSLogix Emulate500, which means you can do "something" for an investment of time and disk space but no money). If you want to do something interesting it is not impossible to use AdvancedHMI (another freebie at its base level) to simulate a process that you want to control e.g. cf. here.



My brother followed a similar path, including mounting DIN rail on a wooden stand and adding various switches, lights and wiring. I've been thinking of doing the same on a spare TV flexible wall mount next to my desk (which I think would be hilarious).



The net totals were instructive as the amount spent was within a few hundred dollars or so of trainers, and the self-build systems would also be far more expensive if this was not a hobby and time had value. So to my mind, investing in a turnkey trainer is not an unreasonable path, especially if the purpose is career-oriented. And while I don't know your exact situation, certainly an employer who expects you to self-learn would be wise to invest in at least a trainer (for you as well as your successors) - "ya gotta spend money to make money."


After saying all that, it only gets you into the programming, and I would estimate less than 5% of the queries on this site are about programming; even questions that boil down to firmware and/or software versions seem to be far more common. So, knowing how to interface the PLC to the real world, how to configure, and communicate between, things like Modular and Distrubuted PLCs and HMIs is a whole 'nuther kettle o' fish and that knowledge is never going to come cheap in time or money.

Bobobodopalus said:

Thanks for all of the replys!
i would quite like to get my hands on a plc just to toy around with, i suppose i'll keep my eyes and ears open if any pop up on the cheap.
as it happens im being passed a project at the end of the year which is a one off job that i will need to use codesys, so i better get started.
at this point i would call myself fairly proficient with cx programmer but only using more basic functions, i have created some FB's in ST and ladder, but i will keep learning whenever i have some time, might be a good time to find a plc to do some xmas decorations or something.

my main "fear" of the way i've learned is someone will one day look at my work and be horrified at the way i have gone about things.

Click to expand...

Yes that can happen. It happened to me when I was developing my "first generation" PLC model railroad. I was using a Micrologix 1000 which had limited I/O. The programs I was developing rely heavy on sequence of steps and the approach I originally used was not a good way to do it. In addition several of the outputs were to energize sections of track to move or stop the train. I was latching and unlatching the outputs which is bad practice.



I also was using a bit value and latching it to indicate when a step was complete. I soon got into a situation where I could not get the programs to run properly no matter what I did.



This was the last working program I had working on the old setup.



https://youtu.be/PCPA4QjvoE0


I also noticed the memory was over 75% filled so it meant this PLC could not do what I wanted it to do. I posted some of my issues here and got some very good feedback on how to handle the problems I ran into. One website to look at is this one:



http://www.contactandcoil.com/patterns-of-ladder-logic-programming/


I found some good information there. I then decided to upgrade the PLC for more I/O and memory. I looked around and considered several options. I chose to go with another Allen-Bradley setup even though there are cheaper options out there. My plan was that I would be able to apply this to work related projects and AB is kinda a standard. With a recent job change this is no longer true and so this project will now just be for personal use. (Although I did develop a few PLC projects at my prior job)


In the end I basically re-wrote everything from scratch but the build is much better now.


Mike

drbitboy said:

eBay (fleaBay) is a source for spare PLCs; I have offered 40-60% of "buy now or best offer" listings and, along with several rejections, gotten a couple of usable systems (MicroLogix 1100 and S7-1214). The MicroLogix is programmed with RSLogix Micro Starter Lite, which is a freebie (along with RSLogix Emulate500, which means you can do "something" for an investment of time and disk space but no money). If you want to do something interesting it is not impossible to use AdvancedHMI (another freebie at its base level) to simulate a process that you want to control e.g. cf. here.



My brother followed a similar path, including mounting DIN rail on a wooden stand and adding various switches, lights and wiring. I've been thinking of doing the same on a spare TV flexible wall mount next to my desk (which I think would be hilarious).



The net totals were instructive as the amount spent was within a few hundred dollars or so of trainers, and the self-build systems would also be far more expensive if this was not a hobby and time had value. So to my mind, investing in a turnkey trainer is not an unreasonable path, especially if the purpose is career-oriented. And while I don't know your exact situation, certainly an employer who expects you to self-learn would be wise to invest in at least a trainer (for you as well as your successors) - "ya gotta spend money to make money."


After saying all that, it only gets you into the programming, and I would estimate less than 5% of the queries on this site are about programming; even questions that boil down to firmware and/or software versions seem to be far more common. So, knowing how to interface the PLC to the real world, how to configure, and communicate between, things like Modular and Distrubuted PLCs and HMIs is a whole 'nuther kettle o' fish and that knowledge is never going to come cheap in time or money.

Click to expand...

my employer tends to treat me as an engineer who can program rather than a programmer who can do some engineering.
i've learnt alot here in the last 8 months or whatever its been, im pretty fluent with their machines now and can do the programming they are used to but now its time to start improving the product with all the things im learning.
im learning all the time different ways to do things.


i was given one of there old machines as a bit of a test bed which is handy but it does need some more stuff on it

Find a common piece of hardware driven by your outfit's controllers. Maybe it's a collection of 525 VFDs, or perhaps some other vendor's. Does it operate over Ethernet, Modbus, or hardwire? 525s in particular have an interesting sequence to perform in code to initiate an Ethernet start, for example. Write a generic module that handles this from a single 'Run Forward' or 'Run Reverse' input. Does the drive stop when your input drops to zero? What happens when your command direction changes? If it works, you've built a tool for yourself as a developer. Can the module be expanded? Sure. Tying an external E-Stop/Safety status as input to this module can support troubleshooting. Now you're beginning to build tools for those that keep equipment maintained. Perhaps you'd like to operate equipment from different command sources, or even limit them. Can you specify and provide command inputs for operators, the program, and maintenance? How do you arbitrate ownership? Now you're beginning to think about process control. What kinds of statuses can you generate from this module to support other modules in the process?

Following this thread. I'm one of 2 mechatronics engineers who work for JTEKT in all the Americas. TOYOPUC (codesys dev environment) is our product & I'm going to need to get down into these weeds to be a viable knowledge base for our customers.
On a side note, if anyone has questions about Toyopuc, please reach out to me or my counterpart @bhouston