New Engineer Seeking Advice for PLC

[mchljrdn]

What is the best way to get programmable logic controller training (college, online, seminars)? I am an electrical engineer based out of Tulsa, Oklahoma and want to work with PLC’s. I've programmed professionally for fifteen years but only recently completed my BS in engineering. I want to work with PLC's but have little direct experience (looking to transition from .net programming to engineering). What are my best options to get my “foot in the door”? Is there certifications or classes you can share? Thanks for the help, Mike

[bartolim]

ISA (International Society of Automation) provides several courses aimed at different experience levels. Their introductory course offering is "PLC Automation: PLC Structure, Programming, Installation and Maintenance (TC30P)". This is one of several courses taught by Conrad DeGrace, who, IMHO, is an eccellent instructor; I have taken his advanced level course offerings. Here is a link to this ISA offering: http://www.isa.org/Template.cfm?Section=Find_Training&template=/conference/ShortDescription.cfm&ConferenceID=5020 The ISA courses are available to both members and non-members, and are highly recommended. Hope this helps,

[Chris Elston]

The best way to learn PLCs is to find a machine builder who has outstanding Sr. Controls Engineers who care about you and want to mentor you by teaching you the ropes of PLC programming. This way you learn project to project different programming concepts and go from there. Not only do you need to understand programming PLC ladder but you need to know some basic knowledge of electrical interfacing and I/O signaling, like digital and analog.

[Crossbow]

If you have a PLC vendor in mind, check with them or their distributors. Most vendors offer many options for training classes on their products.

[OkiePC]

Welcome from another Okie! When you say you've programmed professionally for 15 years, can you tell us what you programmed? what languages you are familiar with? And, what sort of electrical experience do you have? Oklahoma has a lot of openings for controls engineers, many of them oil and gas related but tons of food and agriculture and every other type of mfg you can think of on some scale. A good vo tech industrial maintenance tech course and a few months as a "breakdown tech" would get your foot in a door at the bottom. With an electrical engineering degree, you should be able to skip that grunt work, although I do recommend the vo-tech classes if you are not already very familiar with industrial machinery and controls. You will likely find PLC programming shockingly different from .net programming by the way. Paul Edited August 7, 2012 by OkiePC