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PLC Training For Beginners – Part 4 of 4: PLC practical training

Welcome to the final part of our PLC training for beginners! In this part, We will exercise Studio 5000 programming software and download our Ladder code to the controller.

PLC Training For Beginners Part 4

This training is structured into four parts. You are now in Part 4. If you landed here and want to start at the beginning, feel free to jump to Part 1: PLC Basics or go back to Part 3: PLC Programming.

Part 1 - PLC Basics

  • History of the PLC
  • PLC Architecture
  • Rockwell automation PLCs

Part 2 - PLC Hardware Components

  • Central Processing Unit- CPU
  • Power Supply
  • Digital And Analog IO
  • Communication
  • Choose suitable PLC hardware for your application

Part 3 - PLC Programming

  • Studio 5000 Introduction
  • Studio 5000 Installation and Activation
  • Get Started with Studio 5000
  • Ladder Diagram Basic Instructions
  • IO Configuration

Part 4 - PLC practical training

  • Let’s develop a basic program…
  • Configure the controller in Studio5000 
  • Download logic to the controller

Though this is general PLC training for beginners, we will be focused on Rockwell automation PLCs and software in the examples.

Part 4 - PLC practical training

Let’s take everything we’ve learned until now and implement a real-life application.

Let's develop a basic program...

SOO - Sequence Of Operation

The SOO is the story of the process. It will specify the equipment involved with the process (sensors, motors, valves) and its rule in the story.

The story of our process: Level control of a water tank. Two Level switches will produce indication of the level in the tank, an on/off (digital) valve will be open and close according to the level switces.

Our SOO is as follow:

Equipment list:

# Equipment Name IO
1
Water Tank
C101
2
Level Switch
LS102
Input: Digital switch
3
Level Switch
LS103
Input: Digital switch
4
Valve
XV104
Output: Digital on/off

Operation list:

# Condition Delay Action
1
LS102 digital input is 'Off'
5 Sec
Open XV104
2
LS103 digital input is 'On'
10 Sec
Close XV104
3
LS103 digital input is 'On'
120 Sec
Alarm - High Level
4
LS102 digital input is 'Off'
180 Sec
Alarm - No Supply

P&ID - Piping and instrumentation diagram

Program Precess

Code

Take the time and try to write the logic for our SOO. My Code in hidden here:

Code - Click to Reveal

Simple Program

Let’s tell the story:

Rung 0 – If level switch LS102 is off (level under 50%) for 5 seconds, then open valve XV104 to fill the tank.

Rung 1 – If level switch LS103 is on (level is above 80%) for 10 seconds, then stop filling the tank by closing XV104.

Rung 2 – If level switch LS103 is on (level is above 80%) for 120 seconds, then it means that the valve is closed for two minutes, and still the tank level isn’t going down. Turn on an alarm for “High Level In Tank C101”.

Rung 2 – If level switch LS102 is off (level is under 50%) for 180 seconds, then it means that the valve is open for three minutes and still the tank level isn’t rising. Turn on an alarm for “No Supply To Tank C101”.

Look at the following trends. Do they tell the same story?

Program Signals

The same SOO ladder code can be written in ten different ways, and a code can continuously be improved. So check my code and make sure you didn’t forget anything.

Connect your laptop to the PLC (Or Emulator)

Great! We have the code ready to download, but first we have to configure the communication to the controller.

Configure the controller in Studio 5000 

As described in part 3, We have to configure the IO Configuration with the actual hardware. So now, we only need to configure the communication:

For Emulator – Only change the type of the controller to Emulator, and change the controller slot according to the emulator slot.

Emulator Studio5000

For Real Controller – Configure the IP address to the actual controller IP (if the controller has no IP configured yet, you should assign IP via the BootP tool).

PLC Studio5000

RSLinx Classic

It’s time to configure the driver that allow us to communicate with the controller:

For Emulator – Choose the Configure Driver icon, and pick the “Virtual Backplan” Driver.

Emulator RSLinx

For Real Controller – Choose the Configure Driver icon and Choose the “Ethernet Devices” Driver. Then, assign the same IP address as the IP of the actual controller.

PLC RSLinx

Download/Upload or edit Online

Until now we were programed in Offline state. After we configured our controller in RSLinx we only need to download the program.

Download to PLC

Now the controller is in RUN mode and the logic are scanned:

Process

Whats Now

Congrats! You finished our PLC training.

We only touched the tip of the iceberg. If you want to learn more about PLC programming, please join our newsletter and get this PLC training (With Part 5 bonus) as a pdf file and much more…

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Check out our new course:

PLC Programming

with Studio 5000 Logix Designer

Check out our new course: