Courses?

Frosty69 · Mar 31, 2012

Hia people I am a fully qualified electrician with nvq3, 17th edition and currently an approved contractor with niceic, i have been running my company for just over a year but the works and therefor funds are so inconsistent from month to month and i have also got crohns disease so i do have trouble with that also.
My background is industrial so i have some experience in controls etc but i want to look at getting a maintenance job local to me (manchester) and wondered what courses are recognised and the best for learning about plcs and fault finding on them and also just learning about production machines etc.
Im looking at this route as it will just bring more security for me.
Any information etc would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks people

malcolmsanford · Mar 31, 2012

Sorry to hear about your illness frosty all the best with that.

I'm not sure you will actually find courses for things like PLC, because these things are very much product specific to the manufactures design. Years ago I did a Allen-Bradley course run by them for their equipment, but that was simply because we were using their products where I was installing.

I know that years later I was working on Siemans PLC drives and they were totally different in set-up, though the basics were the same.

Did you try googling courses ?

Frosty69 · Mar 31, 2012

Hia malcolm i havnt tried googling yet just wanted peoples views etc of here as i know there are a lot of rubbish courses out there. I just didn't want to talk my way into a job then look an idiot when something does actually go wrong and i cannot sort it. As i say i do have some experience but i wouldn't say i was overly confident.

alli · Mar 31, 2012

Maintenance Training

Never used them, I don't know if they are any good, but did notice they did PLC courses

Frosty69 · Mar 31, 2012

thanks alli that look good and probably what I'm after to be honest mate as it starts from the beginning so it will hopefully brush up the parts i already know. thanks again

Knobhead · Mar 31, 2012

One thing I’ve found with manufacturers courses is they tend to waste the first day or so on configuring the PLC. How often do you need to go in to configuration set-ups? There have been odd occasions I’ve had to do it when expanding systems but it’s not worth paying good money for something your not likely to use. I was sent on a Telemecanique course 3 months after having configured a new PLC I was installing.

They need to concentrate more on programming skills be it ladder or literal and the ways of using the PLC as a diagnostic tool. The quicker you can search a program the sooner the plant is up and running. The is one down side though, OK you know your waiting for a signal from PX178….. Where is it!!!!

Modicon and Telemecanique and others have the facility to add on screen comments so if I’d had trouble finding something I’d add a location. Modicon was my favourite you could add a full page of comments for each network. Or three full lines per node.