Beginners

[Denesh]

Any recommendations for controllers to setup a lab for 10 students

 

[5618]

You have some rather vague requests. I'll guess your background is education, not industrial controls. I suggest getting in touch with some engineering and maintenance professionals in your area to see what is most relevant to local industry. I think petrochemicals is a main industry near you and I expect them to use the big names like Siemens or Rockwell Automation. I also expect redundant systems and safety to be prevalent.

The equipment to use is dependent on your budget and how advanced your curriculum is designed. For Rockwell systems, CompactLogix would be the entry point. Taking Rockwell to an advanced level would use redundant ControlLogix or GuardLogix systems and various forms of networked IO.

Working with Siemens, S7-1200 would be the starting point to get students familiar with the systems. Getting advanced would lead you toward S7-1500 redundant and safety systems.

Communication is a big part of control systems relative to PLCs. That could be basic Ethernet through parallel redundancy and rings.

Also relevant is safety systems like a basic dual channel safety controller and series redundant safety contactors with mechanically interlocked monitoring contacts.

I will also mention HMI / SCADA systems and development are relevant to PLC training, depending on your curriculum.

Software costs are something to investigate. Ideally, manufacturers would help education systems create technicians who understand their systems at little cost. I have seen a mix of great support through no support, depending on the manufacturer or local representatives. That would also depend on your funding / tuition business model. I wouldn't expect free advanced software to a for-profit institution, but I think supporting grade school level or non-profit is usually worthwhile.

Regarding additional equipment, at minimum you would likely need 24VDC power supplies and some wire, Ethernet cables and switches, and Windows PCs for the development software.

An assortment of different sensors would be a nice addition. You might be able to get some donations from local industry or manufacturers representatives. Get local professionals involved to help develop your curriculum and ideally partner with them for internships and jobs for graduating students. Best wishes for your program.

 

[lfe]

If the dominant brand of PLCs in your area is Allen Bradley, the cheapest thing would be to buy Micro 820 PLCs and use the CCW software which has a free version.

 

[Corsair]

There are people on this site that have ready to use trainers that are wired with lights and switches, etc. If your budget permits they can be a good choice.

We use a system of modules that we made for training and simulation tasks. It's in use in our lab and at a couple of colleges. It's based upon the 11-pin equivalent to the 8-pin vacuum tube-style relay bases. I wanted to use 11-pin flat-tab bases but I couldn't find suitable housings.

The design details are at the end of the PLC class outline you can download from CorsairHMI.com. It shows most of the modules that we have and gives the rules for coming up with other compatible modules.

The document includes Digikey part numbers for most of the components.

You have to take some care if you plug 11-pin 3-pole relays into the system as there have been a couple of different base pinouts - all this is in there.

We have some 3-light stoplight modules, plenty of pushbutton and LED modules, a discrete I/O PLC to PLC peer communication pair, and a garage door opener. The garage door opener uses a CD rom drive mounted on a DIN rail clip with the door opening downward. The advantage of using it as an example is I don't have to spend any time explaining to the students how it is to work. The outline includes a state transition diagram. We implement it three different ways - states encoded in a register, states encoded in flip-flops, and in SFC. The module can be a challenge to build because of the small size of the parts inside the drive. It takes some experimentation with a resistor to slow the motor down and yet not stall it.

We do a 3 to 12 seconds out of 15 time-based pseudo-analog transmitted from one PLC to another. This is a tribute to some Healy-Ruff water plant stuff that I saw when I was starting out.

Our training stations are on two-foot square pieces of plywood. Each has 8 sockets wired for the modules with some DIN rail space for the garage door opener or other accessories.

I used to think I wanted PLC relay outputs for trainers because of the versatility of what you can do with them. You'll find that is wrong the first time you hear one acting like a buzzer. We can use an external relay to get a dry contact output with some of our module sockets.

 

[jaden]

What level is this course? Intro for high school, continuing ed seminars, full credit college degree course, or ?

 

[Corsair]

I personally do not think that it is a requirement that what is used to teach in the schools matches what is used in the field. That's a treadmill that no school can get on and keep up with - and it serves no purpose.

You can't become a concert piano player without first playing the scales. Boolean logic, math, etc, etc. This means that schools should use a combination of software and hardware that a student can wrap their heads around and understand without getting entangled in a mountain of product-dependent details. So many threads on this forum from people who are simply not ready to play the piano yet because they've never played the scales.

I just interviewed two maintenance electrician types that both had 'Logix 5000' and things like that on their resumes. Neither one had any concept of PLC sequential scan. Education is to give the student a fishing pole, not give them a fish. If the student needs Brand X training - go to Brand X or to a distributor.

 

[GaryS]

Why not just download the free version of CCW it comes with Emulate
it a place to start each of you students can have their own copy then later purchase a Micro850 as you grow

 

[drbitboy]

Any recommendations for controllers to setup a lab for 10 students

What is the budget?

What level is this course? Intro for high school, continuing ed seminars, full credit college degree course, or ?

I would expand on @jaden's query and ask what is the syllabus for the course? E.g.

• Will it include ladder logic, structured text, both, or more?
• Will it include wiring and diagnostics of discrete and analog inputs and outputs? What field busses might be covered?
• Will it include PID control?
• Will it include HMIs?
• Will it include communications and networking? Serial? Ethernet? Modbus RTU/TCP? DH/DH+? E/IP? Profibus/-net?

For example, assembling a trainer from parts (e.g. see here) at the start of each semester would be an excellent introduction to electricity, wiring and other skills (using a VOM, electrical safety, etc.). Terminating and diagnosing an un-stripped wire would be my first lesson, and would put the student well on their way to helping with I/O checks in the field, which are a major part of any commissioning task. Frying an inexpensive LED with no resistor would be my second lesson .

Why not just download the free version of CCW it comes with Emulate
it a place to start each of you students can have their own copy then later purchase a Micro850 as you grow

PLC emulators are probably the best way for learning programming, because students with their own PCs/laptops can experiment and work on assignments without being at the lab.

My personal preference is the RSLogix Micro Starter Lite/RSEmulate 500 pair; it starts up faster and has a better interface than anything else (IMO), but uses ladder logic only and has other limitations. It can also program a subset of the relatively inexpensive MicroLogix family PLCs, if wiring and other hardware tasks are in the syllabus.

CCW is usable if slow and cumbersome, but it does include ST. Another freebie with an emulator is DoMore. Siemens LOGO!Soft is an odd duck but is also a freebie with an emulator.

 

[diat150]

get one of the automation direct clicks with di/do and ai/ao.

 

[cardosocea]

If the dominant brand of PLCs in your area is Allen Bradley, the cheapest thing would be to buy Micro 820 PLCs and use the CCW software which has a free version.

CCW is closer to Siemens than the other Rockwell products...


There isn't a lot of detail in your request, so here's my thoughts:



- What budget do you have? This is key to hardware and hopefully some licenses on the cheap.

- Do you know which platforms are more common around you? This will direct where you'd spend money.
- Even if you have one platform used around you, do make an effort to teach other platforms. There's a benefit in doing so for your students since it opens the doors to move elsewhere or catch a break in a different industry.

- Do teach at least one SCADA platform (most likely ignition), nowadays just knowing PLCs doesn't cut it and the interaction with the HMI is interesting to develop your PLC logic too.

- If budget is indeed tight, get a cheap platform (Automation Direct or something like that) to teach the hardware part of a common PLC (how to wire stuff to it) and then focus on, for example, Codesys or Twincat to teach the basics of PLCs and PLC programming.

- Get in touch with automation vendors... if the most relevant platform around you is Rockwell, there's a very good chance Siemens will be interested in providing some stuff for you.

- Do get in touch with local companies too and ask whether they have obsolete, but working equipment they can give to you once a machine is decommissioned. You may have some trouble getting software licenses, but a PLC is a PLC and knowing how older versions worked is always a useful bit of knowledge (like, the first PLC I interacted with was through a console the size of a calculator).



Good luck.

 

[mk42]

https://www.siemens.com/global/en/c...ducation/sce/learning-training-documents.html


Siemens has a whole pre-built curriculum you can use, and they usually give educational institutions pretty good discounts on trainer kits.

 

[Denesh]

Thanks

 

[James Mcquade]

this is what i would do.

Considering the area you live in, i would go to local industries and talk to the maintenance & engineering managers to see what they need and would like to have taught. go to multiple plants, not just 1 or 2. ask what plc's, hmi terminals, drives, components they have in use. What do they like best and prefer. what plc's does the maintenance guys like the best and why.

then develop your training course around that. developing a plc program around a particular brand that no one uses might get your foot in the door, but teaching a plc that is widely used in the area will get you noticed.
james

 

[JeremyM]

Any recommendations for controllers to setup a lab for 10 students

What are you teaching them?