a career in plc programming

pdiddy

im a recently qualified electrician and was thinking bout moving into a career of plc programming

can anyone tell me of an add on course i can do to help me.

or has any other electrician done this and maybe able to give me some advice please

thanks all

fishdog

can anyone tell me of an add on course i can do to help me.

I dont know what you mean by "add on". I am also a qualified electrician and I plan to work as a PLC programmer. My experience is that you need to do a degree (at least 3 years full time) to move into this area, that is what I am doing at present. Having said this, a friend of mine does alot of work with PLCs, some of it programming and he has no formal training apart from being an electrician. It took him over 10 years to get to where he is now, but he has a great well paying job!

I get the feeling that you are looking for a quicker route though! I dont know of a quick route into PLC programming full time, but being a sparks will help you alot. It has helped me in understanding what is happening with the field wiring and instrumentation which is very relevent when programming PLCs.

Good luck!!

Jnealon

When I was in college in kevin Street there were a few electricians on my course and some of them have got jobs in PLCs, control and automation. This was a fulltime course but I am sure there are part-time equivalents.

Andrea B.

Was there. Consider getting in to factory work where you are heavily exposed to automated equipment, while targeting a career with a supplier/manufacturer of equipment.

I would definitely follow other posters advice of getting a degree, of some sort while all this is going on as there are many with degrees less capable than my sweet self in PLC and automation positions that stipulate the degree level .

It's fairly useless doing any of the FAS etc. PLC courses unless you are utilising that training and putting it in to practice. All they do is translate basic hardwire stuff to program.

Best of luck........

curraghyid

the major manufacturers all run plc programming courses siemens ,mitsubuishi, allen bradley i know its specialising on one manufacturers product and the courses are quite expensive but they are very good and if its just plc programming you want to learn about its an option. it would be important to have basic working knowledge of plc language ie lad,stl or fbd and principal of operation although not essential.check this site www.sitrain.com siemns automation dept courses are ran in ireland from time to time.
best of luck with it.

The \/\/anderer

I've been trying to get a PLC programming job for ages. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering, and have been working as an engineer for over 5 years.

I can't even get an interview. One company refused me because I have no work experience with PLCs. That was about 2 months ago and they still have the job advertised on the internet. By now I could have been settled in and up to speed with the programming.

There seems to be very few jobs out there. (especially PLCs but other electrical engineering jobs too). Does anyone have any advice where to go from here?

fishdog

I have 3 job offers at present and I will not finish my degree until May 2009.

I had little difficulty finding good work experience with consulting engineers for the summer.

I think there is alot of work for electrical engineers at present.

Kevin Street DIT arranged for engineering students to meet 17 companies that are looking to recruit electrical engineers recently and the feedback from employers was very positive. These companies included ESB international, Hanley Controls, Zenith etc.

Over the years working as an electrician I have made contacts thathave helped too I guess.

DublinDilbert

It is always handy to have some PLC knowledge, plenty of sparks i know do. Some might not do hard core programming all the time, but can still use what the know for debugging machinery / control systems.

This would be really helpfully if you were ever going for maintenance electrician's / technicians jobs. I'd imagine PLCs would be very handy to have for installing the likes of air-conditioning / building management systems also.

There must be lots of material on-line now for learning this stuff to get a bit of an idea, i've no idea where would do courses as i haven't touched a PLC in 10 years :eek:

To get into programming full time a 3 year dip / ordinary degree would be preferred by most employers, in saying that most of PLC stuff i know i learnt "on the job" from electricians.

The \/\/anderer

fishdog wrote: »

I have 3 job offers at present and I will not finish my degree until May 2009.

Can I have one of them? lol

Seriously though, I haven't seen any entry-level jobs advertised. They all require over 2 years experience programming PLCs. How are you supposed to get this experience? Its very annoying.

fishdog

Can I have one of them? lol

To be honest they are electrical engineering jobs, but they would involve little or no PLC programming. I hope this is where they will lead eventualy. Also due to my lack of experience working at this end of the game the money will be poor until I gain more experience.

There seems to be very few jobs out there. (especially PLCs but other electrical engineering jobs too).

I was responding to the above quote trying to show that there are electrical engineering jobs out there.

Good luck!!

The \/\/anderer

fishdog wrote: »

To be honest they are electrical engineering jobs, but they would involve little or no PLC programming. I hope this is where they will lead eventualy.

Yea thats what i thought too - Get a job as an engineer, and after a few years you'll have experience, and you'll have no trouble getting the job you want.
Wrong! As i said already, none of the automation companies are willing to take people on who haven't got working knowledge of PLCs.

Just keep this in mind if you're dead set on becoming an automation engineer! How you're supposed to acquire 2 years experience is beyond me, if nobody is willing to take you on with no experience. Viscous circle methinks. As you might have figured out, I'm kinda pi**ed off with the whole situation.

Best of luck anyway.

fishdog

The \/\/anderer, I said this:

I have 3 job offers at present and I will not finish my degree until May 2009.

I had little difficulty finding good work experience with consulting engineers for the summer.

I think there is alot of work for electrical engineers at present

In response to you saying that there were

very few jobs out there

..... in electrical engineering.

Although programmig PLCs is something I would like to do as part of my job I realise it may take time to get such a job. However it seems from meeting sevral companies that there are many oppertunities for automation engineers. Time will tell.

I think that someone with your experience will find that sort of work. You may just have been unlucky. Keep trying!!

Andrea B.

Very few companies, especially in Ireland write PLC programs from scratch to finish, unless it is bespoke equipment. Most work involves modification of existing programs/blocks to suit their environment/product/line interface/HMI etc. Why re-invent the wheel?

From my own experience, the most apt authors and tweekers of programs are the ones who would be able to implement the same program in to hardwire if required, showing an excellent grasp of electrical control.

IMO there are very, very few people in this country spending 70% of their work time actually dealing with PLC programming. In end user industry and especially med device and pharma a program tweak might require a re-validation and FDA submission, so every deliverable is hammered out with equipment suppliers prior to implementation. Equipment design and integration is also very left to third party suppliers, so that they can also implement CE.

I have sat for interviews with automation managers who wouldn't know a PLC if it was sitting on their nose, so don't get bogged down focusing on those positions that "require an excellent knowledge of PLC's". More often than not it's a HR template.

Two sites I used to browse for advice and may be of interest to anyone increasing their knowledgebase or studying PLC's are;

MrPLC and PLCTalk

jackofalltrade8

I worked at PLC programming for about 8 months. I would have to say It wasn't for me.

You spend 40- 50 hours a week in front of a screen, for several weeks/months at a time. You have to be a fast and furious programmer, not slow and methodical ( which I was). I could programme it no problem, but not to the speed required.

Then when you are finished programming your code, you go to site and commission it. I was involved in PLC programming for Creameries in SLigo and Northern Ireland.

So you go on site with your PLC code and commission it. That is, along with the process (mechanical ) engineer you run through each and every PLC program until it controls the plant as desired. This takes up to 2 weeks.

Modifications are done to the plc code on site also such as timings , etc. So commissioning is like a marathon. Endless hours, even to 1am or 2am in morning sometimes.

My take on programming is it would be alot more interesting if you were working on smaller projects. Writing code for a Brewery or Creamery is a major amount of programming and testing taking several months.

I haven't touched a P.L.C in 10 years. However I can see the attraction of working from start to finish on a project, where its up to you to more or less program it the way you want to, and then see your program controlling a process or machine.

xdaeire

Othe guy that started this post.
I run a company specialising in HVAC control. We use specialised controllers, more flexible than PLC,s, made by Cylon. We also use Trend, Siemens, Stachwell, Honeywell, etc. The controls industry in Ireland is quite small, and a good engineer can earn good money. I usually empploy Sparks, with good it skills and train them up myself. The job requires a good working knowledge of Plant, ie boilers, chillers, air handling plant etc. It is all site based, varied, and extremely interesting. I would suggest you consider a career in this field as an alternative, ive done some PLC work, and it can be quite boring. Our engineers would be let take a project form inception, design and write software and graphics package, commision field devices, and software, and hand over a working system to the client.
If u need any more info, check out www.cylon.com my company name and details are there, TR Controls.

Regards
Niall

watty

A course at an x.I.T, several years at least.

It's a lot more than simply learning a programming technique. Also can vary and involve a lot of Instrumentation and Control, e.g. PID loops on boiler /cooling systems, not just digital on/off and timing. In larger sites SCAT, SCADA, profibus and general serial interface and networking skills / knowledge / theory required also.

Stoner

you should try FAS, they run some good classes when the need is there. I specialised in Control/Instrumentation in Kevin Street only to find that I still needed additional control skills. So i spent another year getting some add on certs in PLCs, electronic control, pneumatics and fluid power .. And in 12 months I got to learn a huge amount of useful information transferred into the work place (much more so than Kevin street where the PLC training was without structure, I’m sure it’s much better now) but it gave me a new respect for FAS.
If i was doing it again I'd look at Kevin Street at night BTH.

the thing about PLCs is that the technology used to interface with them has made them very easy to program. Therefore lots of people can do it, so in many cases it has become a test of speed etc. IMO. Like many things in this industry you are judged / employed or kept on due to your speed and accuracy.

Steve

Stoner wrote: »

the thing about PLCs is that the technology used to interface with them has made them very easy to program. Therefore lots of people can do it, so in many cases it has become a test of speed etc. IMO. Like many things in this industry you are judged / employed or kept on due to your speed and accuracy.

That's only true up to a point IMO.
The recent plc IDE's certainly make it easier and faster to do simple stuff.
To earn good money, you have to go beyond that and specialise in one or two brands and learn the hardware inside out.

dingding

http://www.itsligo.ie/prospective_students/Engineering/hc_eng_mechatronics.html

Another course that might be worth considering. They run it part time and they also give exemptions for electrical trades.

The distance learning version. http://www.itsligo.ie/online/bengordmechatronics.htm

fishdog

you should try FAS, they run some good classes when the need is there

Interesting. Can you tell me what courses they do/have they run and where?

it gave me a new respect for FAS.

The FAS standard can be great at times. It seems to depend on luck.

Kevin street where the PLC training was without structure,

I have heard this from several other people, but not experienced it myself. My experiences with PLCs in Kevin street have been fantastic so far and I have choosen to focus on control and automation.

Stoner

fishdog wrote: »

Interesting. Can you tell me what courses they do/have they run and where? .

To tell you the truth I cant remember, I just have the city and guild certs somewhere, it was run in FAS in Cabra, but they had similar ones running in other centers at the time. Many of these classes took a hit 5 years or so ago when everyone had a job and didn't need FAS for help

fishdog wrote: »

I have heard this from several other people, but not experienced it myself. My experiences with PLCs in Kevin street have been fantastic so far and I have choosen to focus on control and automation.

yeah, like i said it must be much better now, I've heard it is. I have the height of respect for Kevin Street BTW, I was only talking about one aspect of my experience there.