Industrial Controls background with non Allen Bradley PLCs

You are quite knowledgeable of industrial control systems, troubleshooting the control panel and field wiring as well as being able to find and opening the correct project file and going online with a non Allen Bradley controller. Once online, you are able to navigate the logic, troubleshoot the logic and add additional logic for process improvements.

In Summary… There are two levels of learning to program PLCs; since we use Allen Bradley processors to develop our lab manuals, these two venues are:

1. RSLogix500 which includes Micro Starter Lite (a stripped down version of RSLogix500 that supports the Micrologix1000/1100 processors). The Complete PLCLearn Series was designed with the 1761-L10BXB processor, the least expensive processor in the RS500 realm. The Lecture Series, CL100, is somewhat generic but uses the data structure of that class of PLCs.

RS500 is the best starting point because of its unmatched Graphical User Interface and ease of programming. You can do this with Emulate 500 or with an actual PLC Lab Station. Some of the lectures are currently free on our YouTube channel. If you can find a copy of Emulate500, Micro Starter Lite and RSLinx Lite you can learn RS500 for the cost of the manual. Both the video disk sets for CL100 and the Lab Wrap-up Discussions have copies of the software on the last disk in the set. If you are going to go that way, I would purchase the manual and the CL100 disk set and then watch the lab discussion in our classrooms. The fastest and smoothest route would be the new lab station with enhanced inputs, CL100 Lecture disk set and the Complete PLCLearn Series printed manual. We may offer the programming cable in the catalog; otherwise, they are approximately $30.00 on EBay or Amazon. Be sure that you have an RS-232 port on your computer; otherwise, you need a USB/RS232 converter...Both are sold as one cable.

2. RSLogix5000 is the newest controller environment and it supports program development and the monitoring of the Logix Engine. You will need the competency from the above RSLogix500 learning process before you start with RSLogix5000.

The current offerings, Vol 1 and Vol 2 of RS5000, are transitional from RS500...not for beginners. BUT… RS5000 for the Beginner does start with the very basics and does not require the prerequisite of the Complete PLCLearn Series. However, most employment opportunities for PLC programming require a solid knowledge of both RSLogix500 and RSLogix5000. It would behoove you to learn both. 

3. If you want to learn both RSlogix500 and RSLogix5000, then select one of the higher categories from the drop down menu and follow the sequence.