Hello everyone,
Mechanic on a stamping line, twelve years in, and I want to move into controls. The plant's all Rockwell, CompactLogix on every press. I can read a rung when the controls guy shows me, can't write one, and there's no PLC I'm allowed to touch after hours. I want to practise ladder and timers at home.
I tried a free web ladder simulator, three timers and no tag names, and burned an hour on a rung the controls guy would do in a minute. Then I downloaded the Studio 5000 trial and it doesn't seem to have an emulator in it. A guy at work reckons I should buy a used SLC off eBay for 80 dollars.
What do people who actually do this say? I don't want to waste the winter on the wrong tool.
What do you want at the end of it, to read the plant's programs and follow a fault, or to write your own from nothing? The answer's different, and not by vendor.
Read first. Follow a fault without calling anyone. Writing later, I think.
A year ahead of you on the same road. I bought the used SLC and it sat in a drawer, RSLogix 500 isn't free and the cable was 60 more. Ok so that's my warning.
Three that are real, and a fourth thing that matters more than all of them.
Connected Components Workbench from Rockwell, free, and from V12 or so it's got a Micro800 simulator built in. Same ladder instruction set family as the big ones, near enough that you can read a CompactLogix rung afterwards. TIA Portal trial with PLCSIM, V19, 21 days if I remember right, so plan a project before you install it. CODESYS 3.5, free without a time limit, IEC languages, and it makes you write a program properly.
The fourth thing: build a little machine in the same program, a conveyor with a photoeye and a timer, so your logic has something to push against. The web toys teach you to click, not to think. There's a getting started piece here: https://plctr.com/introduction-to-plc-programming-for-beginners/
The machine model is the part everyone skips. Don't.
CCW installed, Micro800 simulator runs. Built a two conveyor rig with a jam timer over three evenings, it's terrible and it works. CODESYS 3.5 installed for later. Skipped the SLC.
What burned that first hour was the web toy, no tags and nothing like a real instruction in it. A vendor tool with a simulator in it and a made up machine to push the logic against is what I should have started with.
Still don't know how much of the CCW side carries over. It isn't the same software as the controls guy's Studio 5000 and I won't find out until I get near a real press. Thanks tomhw, kaim and finn21.
Sold mine to the next guy, by the way.