Hi guys, I'm the electrician for a company with machines run by PLC's of different varieties. No one ever documented anything and most of the machines were built by companies that are now out of business. My boss had our programs (PLC's and panelviews) backed-up onto a CD by an outside engineering firm so we'd have copies, but I have no idea how to decipher the programs (I have RSLogix500 and can open the programs but that's about it). The tech we hired to save our data told me that without the "comments" in the programs, it would be very difficult to understand. He's right!
My experience: Industrial electrician, over 11 years with a machine-builder. I attended a 2-day Allen Bradley PLC training course about 10 years ago, but most of my experience has been building panels, assembling machines and wiring them, so my programming knowledge is minimal. We have NO controls engineer here, and barely have an IT department. I HAVE purchased the PLC Tutor handbook, and joined this site...
Where do I start? Nothing major has happend (YET!!) but I want to prepare myself as much as possible.(For instance, I have a machine that should read travel in inches-per-minute, and the readout quit working. More out of curiosity I have tried to find something in the program to tell how that happens. No luck. My prox swith feeds to an input, but then what?)
As you can see, I've jumped into to the deep end without my floaties.
Thanks in advance!
My experience: Industrial electrician, over 11 years with a machine-builder. I attended a 2-day Allen Bradley PLC training course about 10 years ago, but most of my experience has been building panels, assembling machines and wiring them, so my programming knowledge is minimal. We have NO controls engineer here, and barely have an IT department. I HAVE purchased the PLC Tutor handbook, and joined this site...
Where do I start? Nothing major has happend (YET!!) but I want to prepare myself as much as possible.(For instance, I have a machine that should read travel in inches-per-minute, and the readout quit working. More out of curiosity I have tried to find something in the program to tell how that happens. No luck. My prox swith feeds to an input, but then what?)
As you can see, I've jumped into to the deep end without my floaties.
Thanks in advance!