henryhughes
Member
I currently work for an engineering company that deals solely with the mechanical side of things, and we hire other companies in to do the electrics/control panels etc.
Obviously it would be better if we did everything in house, and I'm therefore doing a National certificate in Engineering Electronic/electrical. Now its not the best college in the world, but its ok for the maths, science, digital electronics, analogue etc, but the PLCs they possess are over 30 years old, which is fine for explaining the basics of how PLC's work, but I'm not going to stick a 30 year old PLC in a Conveyor control Panel. So I'm thinking of buying a new PLC (not too expensive i here, when I've asked around for advice in the real world, I'm just getting Names thrown at me "siemans are good, mitsubusi are awful, Alan Bradleys are great", which meens nothing to me at the moment. People employed at the companies that make the control panels are reluctant to tell me too much for obvious reasons. Other People see it as a little club where they dont want new members, so they just say its "too hard, you'll never understand it".
So My question is.... lol are you still reading this?. What PLC unit should i buy, what extra bits do i need to go with it etc, and I'm only going to be playing with it, so it doesn't need to be a huge thing that'll be controlling 30 robots, but it would be good if it can be used later on for a small conveyor control panel, when I've finished with me playing. The companies we provide our Machines to use siemans plc's, so maybe it would be better having one of them? even though Alan Bradleys are so Fantastic, apparently.
Now if you've managed to read all this and not got bored, and even manage to give some advice, I'll be extremely greatful.
Obviously it would be better if we did everything in house, and I'm therefore doing a National certificate in Engineering Electronic/electrical. Now its not the best college in the world, but its ok for the maths, science, digital electronics, analogue etc, but the PLCs they possess are over 30 years old, which is fine for explaining the basics of how PLC's work, but I'm not going to stick a 30 year old PLC in a Conveyor control Panel. So I'm thinking of buying a new PLC (not too expensive i here, when I've asked around for advice in the real world, I'm just getting Names thrown at me "siemans are good, mitsubusi are awful, Alan Bradleys are great", which meens nothing to me at the moment. People employed at the companies that make the control panels are reluctant to tell me too much for obvious reasons. Other People see it as a little club where they dont want new members, so they just say its "too hard, you'll never understand it".
So My question is.... lol are you still reading this?. What PLC unit should i buy, what extra bits do i need to go with it etc, and I'm only going to be playing with it, so it doesn't need to be a huge thing that'll be controlling 30 robots, but it would be good if it can be used later on for a small conveyor control panel, when I've finished with me playing. The companies we provide our Machines to use siemans plc's, so maybe it would be better having one of them? even though Alan Bradleys are so Fantastic, apparently.
Now if you've managed to read all this and not got bored, and even manage to give some advice, I'll be extremely greatful.