so how'd you find yourself programming PLC's?

[akreel]

What kind of toy do you get your hands on in the loo?

Nice... Could I have made a more graphic typo?

 

[Allen Nelson]

Life Story

I was a newly minted Chemist, and my bride and I moved to Delaware, home of Dupont, and a couple of other big chemical companies. I was supposed to find work; she was supposed to go to graduate school.

But the economy was soft, and everyone had a hiring freeze. I had put in applications with headhunters. One called, saying that an engineering company had a need for my Wordperfect skills (this was back in the days when knowing anything about a PC was uncommon).

Well, I figured that a) if they were calling ME for Wordperfect, they must be desperate, and b) we needed the money.

So I started out temping in the Tech Writing department (doing a Traffic Light system - really), and they offered me full-time there. I declined, but did some other odds and ends work. Some of it was maintaining a "data table database". Multipe engineers working on the same project would need a bunch of "N7" registers, and I would enter which ones were taken, and what they were used for into a Lotus 123 speadsheet (for later entry in the PLC (by me)). I would also enter the PLC code (written longhand by the engineers (actually, often Xeroxed templates (such as a motor starter w/ alarms) with the addresses filled in). I also did CAD work.

In short order, I was offered a full-time CAD position. But since CAD wasn't a full-time job, they also had me doing SCADA work ("They both involve drawing pictures on the screen, right?"). Eventually, I needed to know enough of how a PLC worked to test my screens, so I leaned some coding. (The hard part was that I STARTED with block transfers, before really understanding coils and contacts).

Eventually I got out of CAD (when the systems integrator when under), and got hired as a PLC programmer by another SI. Fortunately for me, that SI worked with a lot of OEMs, so my job was to convert, say, a TI program into a SLC (plus make changes that were specific to that machine). This also meant that I got to play with the machinery while making PLC changes to learn how changing one affected the other. (Unlike nowadays, where the entire program is written before I ever see the plant, or gain a REAL understanding of the process.)

And I've been working for integrators ever since.

 

[monkeyhead]

thanks for the replies. i'm getting the impression that i'm a lot younger than most of the guys here.

it's also interesting to see how many people ended up working with PLC's more as a side effect of something else they were doing.

 

[elevmike]

Personally I got tired of skinned knuckles, steel toed boots and Carharts, hard hats, black and dark blue fingernails, and sore muscles etc...

Now my waist is twice the size, and my fingers are half the size. My office is cool in the summer, and warm in the winter. I can wear tennis shoes all day. And I dont get vertigo looking down at the floor 6 feet away, instead of 200 feet away....

However I'm still in the same busniess....

 

[jimbo3123]

I went to school for electrical engineering.
Always planned on going into a computer field (hardware/software). Embedded systems interested me. Learned a bunch of programming languages, but I liked assembly the best because of the feel that you get for how the processor actually works.

I was looking for a summer job, and I had a family friend who worked for a controls company. I started working there in the shop, putting together panels. Did that for a couple of summers. Later did a summer internship in engineering with the same company.

Never thought about PLC programming as "real" programming or engineering. How wrong I was.

After graduation, I was offered a full-time job with the same company. Almost 3 years later, I'm still here. I really do enjoy the programming part of the job. Project mannagement has its merits too. I guess I like the variety of the job most.

 

[mordred]

Started out as a Naval Hull technician. Decided I had enough of sailing so I quit that career and went into computers. Took a 2 year computer technicians course. I then started working at Fletchers as a waste water treatment tech. This was due to Fletchers not having an IT dept at that time. Fletchers sold their company, Thanmkfully the new company realized they needed an IT dept. I then started working IT. As most of our equipment ran off PLC's I ended up self teaching myself all the fundamentals and was able to challenge all the local courses for the ticketing.

 

[bwheat]

I got my BS in EE and got a job in a small plant that needed someone that knew something about PLC's. I had one course that covered PLC's in school. The company sent me off to several PLC schools and I got to play with everything in the plant for about 3 years. I had a great time. I used every instruction in an AB 5/15 just to see if I could. Learned how to fault a processor more ways than I can count. That job was the best training I have ever gotten. Been doing PLC's, system design, and plant maintenance work ever since.

 

[RMA]

After leaving university, I started life as a design engineer for ITT (before they became just a hotel chain) designing first generation computer controlled telephone exchanges - initially with DTL ICs then TTL - hence my liking for FUP programming in PLCs!

When that project collapsed after ITT decided to concentrate all development in London (we were near Glasgow) after all, for American management, 500 miles is just down the road - they couldn't understand why most people wouldn't move! End of project, new job with Kent Automation in Luton (I was one of the few to agree to move to London - for a 24 yr. old single, the incentives were just too good!). My first project with Kent was a system that was still running until a couple of year's ago: based on a PDP8 with 12 kB memory, the system controlled a simulation plant whereby Concorde 001 made a simulated flight from London to New York and back every day with the system controlling the temperture etc. of the hall and driving hydraulic rams to simulate the loading on the wings etc. during the "flight" - that was in 1969!

After living through the takeover of Kents by Brown Boveri (and having spent several years as chief troubleshooter, like Ron Beaumont, I really enjoyed that!), I moved on and landed up in Germany where I met my wife and therefore got stranded before Brown Boveri became ABB. After a period of unavoidable self-employment, I landed up back as an employee of a company who dealt in Process Control systems, also primarily in the Chemical industry (hardly surprising since the founder was an ex-employee of Kent Germany) and although their main business was ABB, Foxborough et al, and PLC (sorry, SPS in German) was a swear-word, the boss and I (humble, as I am!) recognised that especially in Germany, there was no way that we could avoid Siemens in future. So while most of the other (much younger) employees insisted, "Over my dead body!", I dived in and committed myself to learning PLCs, well at least S7.

After three years, I won't say it's been easy. Coming from an interrupt driven background, I must admit I still have problems with the cyclical nature of PLCs and if possible I bend the system using "First pass flags" to achieve a quasi interrupt-driven system, or if the budget allows (and the project is suitable) then I use S7-Graph and I avoid ladder like the plague! Having been used to programming both the PDP8 and the PDP11 in machine code I'm quite happy in AWL although my hardware background makes FUP first choice. I like to plan my programmes as flow charts and that just doesn't work with the cylical programme sequence.

By the way, during my self-employed period in the early '90's, I had occasion to work with Opto-22 controllers. I really enjoyed working with them, I found their "Cyrano" flow-chart based programming system superb. I don't really understand why they don't turn up here more often, or is it precisely because this forum is too ladder oriented and flow-chart based programming doesn't come so naturally?

So that's how I landed up working with PLCs and unlike many of my (former) colleagues from the DCS/SCADA scene, I don't regard it as a step down. However, I must admit to a quiet chuckle when I remember the two years that it took Siemens a few years back to get the S7 (V4 at that time) system working, that replaced one of the Kent K90 (PDP-11 based) systems which I installed for Bayer Brunsbüttel in 1980-81.

 

[CaseyK]

Besides playing with radios and wires and hobby kits as a kid, I went to Peoria, IL for fame and fortune, and started designing relay logic engine controls and switchgear for generator sets, then went on to installation and testing of them. Then back to engineering, electrical and mechanical design, decided to go get paid to play with radios (FCC technician) for 9 years, and back to engineering. A temp agency ran an ad for someone to draw schematics for a month or two, and decided to moonlight at that for a while.

While drawing away one day, no one could get the AB software to work. I sat down for a while, found where the software was, I could "dir" with the best of them. Basically, I figured that you had to do a cd\ to get to the AB program, and became the resident PC expert and got the job of programming the machines, and 6 more months of work.

Really had nothing to do with my background, just lucky.

regards.....casey

 

[monkeyhead]

I had occasion to work with Opto-22 controllers. I really enjoyed working with them, I found their "Cyrano" flow-chart based programming system superb. I don't really understand why they don't turn up here more often, or is it precisely because this forum is too ladder oriented and flow-chart based programming doesn't come so naturally?

I've found that a majority of people who use RLL first hate the flow-chart method. I think they both have their strengths. It's a lot harder to write elegant Opto-22 charts, than it is to write elegant ladders. They have a new scripting language that's very similar to C programming that I think is the best thing since sliced bread.

Plus Opto-22 hardware is no where as reliable as say AB. In my four years as a tech, i've only seen one AB module go bad out of 12 machines, and out of the 9 opto based systems we've had everything from controllers, ethernet cards, i/o modules and b300 brains go bad.

I think I'll always hold a soft spot in my heart for Opto though. I always think of Opto-22 resembling a higher level programming language where ladder based stuff is closer to the hardware and seems like a lower level programming language. (lower does not = bad in case anyone is wondering.)

 

[tom_stalcup]

hmmmmmm.... Let's see.....
Did my time in the Navy(submarine power plant electrician)....
Wasted some time waiting for my (ex)wife to graduate after getting out....
Moved to california, worked for Office Team while killing a year to become a Ca resident and go to school.....
Got hired as a mechanic at the place I was working for in the part's room as a stockroom attendant.....
Contractors put in a conveyor system with a few glaring issues, and no-one there could fix them.....
So I started programming.

 

[Rod]

It appears to me that most of the folks here have the canojes and the luck to be where they are.

Guys helping others gain the knowledge - it used to be called an apprenticeship - unheard of these days!!!!!! I spent my youth as an apprentice to my father - a fourth generation cabinet/carpenter - don't pay the bills.
I realized the flaw and taught my son 4 computer languages (after I beat myself silly learning them myself) Anyone need an Apple II+ with 16K ram and 4 (FOUR!!) disk drives! I have an Apple IIe also.

Kudos to all of you who have boot-stapped yourselves to your present level. And Kudos to those who bring the WILLING with you!!!

 

[pstephens]

Technically, I can't really say that I'm programming PLC's yet, but I've taken a giant step in that direction.

I got a degree in mechanical engineering technology once upon a time, and worked at a variety of different jobs, usually as a 'project engineer'. Hated most of the stuff I was doing. One place, with a megalomaniacal ex-automotive VP at the helm, actually started out the year giving each engineer a "head count". This represented the number of direct laborers that I was expected to 'eliminate' through the capital projects that I would propose. Not a happy place to work. They could have used a revolving door on the engineering department.

After managing to get thrown clear of that trainwreck, I found myself at a very small job shop that designed and built all kinds of machinery, fixtures, dies, etc. It was like the heavens had opened up -- I'd found what I was put on this earth to do! My favorite designing jobs were those that required a control system. Our small company couldn't afford to keep a controls technician on the payroll, so we would just bring in outsiders when the need arose. In the process, over many years, a lot of what they were doing "rubbed off" on me, though I never actually had occasion to learn programming.

For various complicated reasons, I eventually found myself president of a one-person company that designs all kinds of industrial equipment. When the latest job requiring a control system came along, I finally decided that I'd had enough of paying someone else to do something that I felt I could (and wanted) to do for myself. As (bad?) luck would have it, it turned out NOT to be the ideal beginner's project.... which is why I showed up here.

Though I'm a PLC greenhorn, I have dabbled quite extensively in electronics, even since I was a child. These days, one of my passions is repairing and restoring vintage tube radios. (When I first started working on them, they weren't vintage!) I recently assembled my own AM transmitter so I could listen to some decent music on my old AM tubers. Keeps me out of trouble, anyway.

Paula

 

[ArikBY]

The year was 1988 I was working in industrial laundry .I had lot of old machine with control problems .I was looking for something to get rid of the old controls.
My boss wants his laundry will not depended on man power .He like very much the PLC idea.and full automation process.
I got free hand to go forward.
At that time the main suppler of electrical parts in Israel was KLOKNER-MULER(I hope I spelled it well) I purchased one of their PLCs. I got PLC hand programmer and thin manual in German, which I couldn’t read. I was stubborn and spend night and days to fight with the PLC and learn how it work. The supplier couldn’t give me any support. It was like Chinese for him.

Afterward I found out there is better PLCs around . with support and books in English.I tried IDEC and then I moved to work with OMRON GE and AB.Before 6 month I started to use AD too.

 

[jolio ST]

I'm very new to this!

I just started PLC last month. I am learning various softwares now including RSLogix, Wago, and WindLDR.
I also just graduated from EE, and this is my first technical fuill time job. I used to do PCB designing when I was in school and part time jobs during holidays...Picked that skill up from reading. hehehe
My present boss is pushing me very hard to learn up basics within this month. So stressful!