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PLC Programming Resources?

Spyderedge

Titanium
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Location
NY
The company I work for uses A-B Micrologix 1000 PLC controllers to run any machine we can't run on switches and relays. My boss's brother in law, an electrical engineer by trade, used to program everything, but he passed away last year and we didn't think to have him explain to us how it all worked.

We just finished building a new machine, and we need it programmed. I have successfully connected the PLC to our laptop with Rslogix and have created the driver. No matter what I read, no tutorial on programming really makes all this stuff make sense. Are there any resources out there for people like me? I'm pretty good with computers for the most part, but for some reason I can't seem to really grasp how this all works.

I'll have to ask my community college to see if any professors are willing to lend a student a hand even if I'm not taking one of their courses.

Thanks guys.

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A-B charges for help, unlike most other vendors.
They can point you to an integrator.
You can take A-B cla$$e$.

Iirc you can buy a service that includes access to their course materials and online resources.
 
Another option is to look for a local integrator that can help you out . . . typical hourly rates for this kind of work are between $100 - $200 / hour depending on the experience and technical complexity of the application.

A couple of basic PLC Ladder Logic classes would probably get you where you need to be to hack something together, but producing maintainable / easy to read and troubleshoot code really requires some experience with defining a good state logic engine with Auto/manual modules along with fault handling / Alarm / Safety modules + good practices with tagname definitions, use of one-shots, timers, etc.

If you have a lot of existing PLC code on machines - probably best to find the machine with the closest configuration to what you need as far as functionality and use that code as a template for structure and modify from there.
 
Why don't you go to a community college and take several courses. And when you complete them and are programming the machines, stop at the payroll department and tell them how much they have to pay you.
 
Another option is to look for a local integrator that can help you out . . . typical hourly rates for this kind of work are between $100 - $200 / hour depending on the experience and technical complexity of the application.

A couple of basic PLC Ladder Logic classes would probably get you where you need to be to hack something together, but producing maintainable / easy to read and troubleshoot code really requires some experience with defining a good state logic engine with Auto/manual modules along with fault handling / Alarm / Safety modules + good practices with tagname definitions, use of one-shots, timers, etc.

If you have a lot of existing PLC code on machines - probably best to find the machine with the closest configuration to what you need as far as functionality and use that code as a template for structure and modify from there.
This machine is a duplicate of another, and for the most part we've already managed to copy the code to the new machine (using a handheld programmer) however it's stuck in one place. I also need to know how to do this stuff in the future. More importantly, I need to teach my boss and his son who will eventually take the business. We have a month and a half to figure it out, that's the deadline.





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Yeah you need to study or go to college. I will ask my brother about recommended books to go through. He went to school for that and other stuff for quite a few years and has a degree. He programs and edits many many PLC's everyday all day.
 
Why don't you go to a community college and take several courses. And when you complete them and are programming the machines, stop at the payroll department and tell them how much they have to pay you.
While I don't know the exact financial status of my employer, we don't have the kind of money for that. I'm also leaving in August to attend the University of Akron's Automated Mechanical Engineering Technology degree program, while shooting for their Div.1 rifle team. I'll learn how to program similar controllers there, but I need the basics of ladder logic sooner rather than later. Another semester at community college isn't an option. I'm moving out.

We do have a book on the subject, but it's focused on the handheld controller as that was basically all that was available at the time. The book was printed ~19.9 years ago. No joke. It's dated may 1998 in pen.

Doing research, I'm getting it. Slowly. It's the dumbed down basics that nobody seems to show. I'll take another crack at it tomorrow.

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I went to school for Allen Bradley controls in the mid 80's. Bought my own plc and software to practice on. Then my employer didn't want to pay me any extra for programming even though I was the only one there that could program.
 
My boss has 3 employees and we work out of a space around 1000 square feet. There is no payroll department, and no budget or timeframe to take a semester of classes just for programming. I make under the minimum wage for fast food in NYC and inspect 15-18k parts per day visually. Better pay is out there, but this isn't the thread for that. I've been there for three years and I haven't wanted to quit a single day I've been there.

I have an email in to one of my college professors last semester to see if he knows anybody who I could ask about this.



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I went to school for Allen Bradley controls in the mid 80's. Bought my own plc and software to practice on. Then my employer didn't want to pay me any extra for programming even though I was the only one there that could program.
That sucks. Those controllers weren't cheap back then, and they still aren't. They don't last forever, either. We burn them out after a few tens of millions of cycles. Inputs and outputs go bad occasionally. We run a lot of parts....... If you've bought a GM car in the last fifteen years, it probably has parts we've inspected or assembled on it.

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The micrologix1000 is now obsolete and no longer in production. So, in addition to learning programming you also need to pick a new PLC sooner rather than later.

I taught myself how to program them using online tutorials and message boards. Plcs.net is a good message board and the people on there were helpful. I ended up taking the most advanced class my local community college offered and found it didn't offer any more than you can learn for free online.

Also, assuming you are buying the plc thru a local distributor, they should have an applications guy that can help you for free. I just migrated from the micrologix1000 to the newer micro820 and got good support from the distributor. They helped me convert the program, commission the plc, etc. You just have to ask and they should help you out.
 
Thanks for the links, guys.

We know they're going obsolete, and that's part of the problem. The handheld programmer we use hasn't been made for 20 years. This will be the first program done by laptop, so it's a learning curve.

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I would determine the total count of Inputs, could the total amount of Outputs. Find out how the Inputs are made to the PLC, switch closures, solid state, what ever. Then do the same for the Outputs. There could be more than one type used at Input or Output. Take that information to Automation Direct and buy a PLC that will do the Inputs and Outputs.

Programming with Ladder logic is not difficult, The first line is the top of the ladder, the logic scans from the top to the bottom one step at a time. Start with a blistering simple program, an input switch (call it 1) closes at input, that switch closure provide power to a coil (call it 1). Next line, coil 1 closes output relay (call it 1).

Next line is END or stop, whatever the exact ladder logic uses for the terminology.

So now you have a program that you could name "My first try"

Connect to the PLC with your computer to PLC cable and load the PLC with the program

Connect a switch to Input 1 and an ohm meter to Output 1 (if PLC is all switch contacts)

Put the PLC in run mode and close Input 1, Output 1 comes on

Once you get how it steps through the program from top to bottom you can add lines that do timers and interlocks, resets, etc

Don't program the entire machine all at once

Practice with the stuff on a bench top where you can see everything connected

Learn the various types of inputs and outputs

Always save your programs. When the machine has a problem running on the PLC, the program may have been damaged by electrical noise, faults, etc. Reload the program to be sure it was not corrupted then troubleshoot from there.

You can also put troubleshooting lines in the ladder logic to help fix problems

All this requires you to know the operation of the machine at each event sequence and timing.
 








 
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