From PLC Confusion
to Controls Confidence

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Any PLC Programming Training Course must…

• Begin with the individual’s current context, existing knowledge on the subject.
• Provide step-by-step instruction, assuming no previous experience.
• Guide the individual through a complete learning path to success.

To maximize the results of a PLC Programming Training Course it needs…

• To engage maximum sensory engagement using hands-on equipment and software.
• To focus on the practical application of knowledge and not theoretical.
• To have a consistent structure and sequence of interaction with the individual.
• To support the written material with instructor contact in person, at a minimum comprehensive recorded lectures specific to the course content.
• To use courseware that has been continuously improved by interaction with 1000’s of users.

The availability of the PLC Programming Training Course needs to be high…

• By providing a point of entry into the learning path that is low risk

• Low risk to the individual’s budget.
• Low risk to the individuals current time management.
• Low risk to the overall investment in the job market.

• By requiring the lowest financial investment in hardware and software

• Building hands-on experience, creating lab projects around readily available controllers.
• Using hardware that is supported by a software development platform that, if not free, is very inexpensive and has an extensive user base and field population.

For more than 20 years, we have been providing the lowest learning cost without compromising the learning goal. Finding the least expensive hands-on hardware/software platform and developing a complete PLC Programming Training Course around this equipment and the software that supports it.

Our desire is to give you easy access to the best learning content available about Industrial Automation, some free and some not, but enough variety to give you a choice.

Our mission is to provide everyone with the opportunity to a practical and job market ready education on Programmable Logic Controllers! In addition to the manuals used in the PLC Programming Training Course, we provide classroom lectures and lab project wrap-up lectures that have always been free on YouTube. We offer on-site training customized for the individual company, geared to their unique processes.

Hands-ON…Hands-ON…Hands-ON, and more Hands-ON!!! Why do we put such emphasis on “Hands-ON”?

After two weeks…We remember:

10% of what we read…

20% of what we heard (more with field experienced teachers)…

30% of what we saw (more with quality presentations)…

50% of what we saw and heard (more with live demonstrations)…

70% of what we discussed (more with class participation)…

90% of what we DID (Hands-On…Hands-On…Hands-On)!!!

For this reason, a PLC Programing Training Course must be 100% hands-on.

Veteran owned enterprise. In addition to providing a PLC Programming Training Course, we provide person to person/group tutoring and programming services (blank sheet through commissioning) for controllers and HMIs.

Philosophy of Learning Programmable Logic Controllers

The primary goal of this learning experience is the support and maintenance of industrial control systems that rely on programmable logic controllers in manufacturing processes.

The entire system must be considered in the development of a PLC Programming Training Course or a PLC Troubleshooting Course. The entire system encompasses all of the components in the control panels, the safety systems, the Human Machine Interfaces, the field devices that connect to the controller, both input and output.

The observed fruits of this learning experience may be referred to as troubleshooting, but it is the comprehension of the programming that determines success or failure when the process is down and the enterprise is stalled. On occasion, I hear, I don’t want them to learn how to program a PLC, just teach them how to troubleshoot the system. You can troubleshoot the control system without using the PLC but you are greatly handicapping yourself. Using the PLC to troubleshoot is not even in question but you will not be able to use the PLC to troubleshoot if you cannot comprehend the program and you will not be able to comprehend the program without having learned to read and write simultaneously.

Here is a quote from a forum of learning experts. “Learning to write reinforces and accelerates learning to read by building the necessary brain connections and languages skills that support both reading and writing. Ladder Logic Diagrams (LLD), Structured Text (ST), Function Block Diagrams (FBD), Sequential Function Charts (SFC) and Instruction List (IL) are all LANGUAGES, defined by the international standard IEC 61131-3.

Which languages to learn? Which language is the most important? This are the subject of much debate, but not among the folks on the shop floor at 3am with a production supervisor leaning on them to “hurry it up”!!!

Graphic or Text

Let’s start with an analogy… Imagine photograph of a suburban scene of houses, driveways, cars, bicycles, mailboxes, sidewalks, yards, landscaping, porches, people and activities. Have the best writer that you can find and have them write a document in any language that you like. Set down two people visually isolated from each other. Hand one of them the photograph and hand the other the document and start asking them questions. 

1. What is the color of the car in the driveway of the white house with green trim? Record the time it took to get a correct answer.
2. How many children are playing on the sidewalk?
3. What color is the car parked in the driveway of the house that has the flag up on the mailbox.

The response from the person using a photo will be at least 100 x quicker than the response from the person reading text, in some case even 1000 x quicker. This simply demonstrates that the more graphic a language is, the faster the cognition.

 

Languages

Let’s consider the languages based on their strengths…

Ladder Logic Diagrams (LLD or LD)

• Best for programs relying heavily on Boolean or bit wise logic.

• It is highly intuitive for electricians and maintenance teams because it mimics physical wiring. Its logical continuity mimics electrical continuity and any one working on the processes is required to have extensive knowledge of electrical circuits.

Function Block Diagrams (FBD)

• Best for analog signal conditioning, motion control and PID loops.
• It simplifies complex algorithms by representing code inside simple reusable instruction blocks.

Sequential Function Blocks (SFC)

• Best for batch manufacturing, multi-stage machine cycling and mixing/filling processes.
• It organizes the major operational phases in sequence allowing technicians and operators to quickly pinpoint where a system is stalled when faulted.

Structured Text (ST)

• Best for complex mathematical calculations, scaling, data manipulation, recipe management and array parsing.
• Equations and formulas can be written more compactly in text than with scattered graphical instruction blocks.

Instruction List (IL)

• This is a low level, text-based language resembling assembly or machine code.
• It is officially deprecated (expressly disapproved) in the current IEC standard.
• IL was the first step towards a high-level language from textual code.

The Installed Base

Training should focus primarily on the installed base and not on the newest arrival on the factory floor. Regardless of our individual opinions of which language is the best, the installed base is currently maintaining production in the enterprise, and it must be supported.

According to a search engine labeled “AI”, 80 to 90% of all controllers at work as of September 2026 are running Ladder Logic Diagram programs. If you do not fully comprehend LLD, you will not be able to support those processes on the factory floor, much less be able to teach technicians to maintain them.

Yet another search engine replied…LLD 70-80%, FBD 10-15% and ST 10-15% combined. Globally it is estimated that 20-40% of controllers include some structured text in their programs, this is a hybrid programming strategy, and this is the model that I have been using for years in my engineering projects.

At least 50% of the installed base does not support any other languages than ladder logic diagrams. Replacing the controller just to allow a complete rewrite of the program in a lesser used language is a three-fold expenditure of resources: 

• writing a program that most maintenance folks cannot troubleshoot or make minor edits to…
• pursuing an expensive retrofit with labor being much more costly than the new controller platform… 
• and, maybe the largest cost to the enreprise, the production downtime to install and commission the retrofit…

Our PLC Programming Training Course for RSLogix500 – SLC500 and MicroLogix is entirely focused on ladder logic diagrams, if for no other reason, that platform does not support multiple languages.

Our PLC Programming Training Course for RSLogix/Studio5000 is predominately exercised with ladder logic diagrams but includes some projects the demonstrate Function Block Diagrams, Structured Text and Sequential Function Charts. Projects that demonstrate Add-On-Instructions (AOIs) can easily be completed with Structured Texting.

Our PLC Programming Training Course for Micro800 using Connected Components Workbench, while most of the lab projects are ladder logic diagrams, I have integrated Structured Text and Function Block Diagrams into a single set of programs in the controller.

Continuity of context from one platform to the next

Ideally, each platform that you learn should accumulate and reinforce the previous.

All industrial controllers have the same basic hardware elements:

• A CPU with RAM that stores the state of inputs and outputs, a list of instructions to execute against the state of the inputs and outputs and temporary registers for variables aside from inputs and outputs.
• A chip set that scans the hardware inputs and stores the values in specific registers in RAM. 
• A chip set that reads the state of memory variables and influences output field devices such as solenoid valves, motor starters and indicators.
• At least one communication port that can read/write to all the registers in RAM.

All industrial controllers have a similar relationship between RAM, the program, the I/O scan and the communication port.

• Any properly configured external device can read from and write to the controller’s RAM.
• The Input scan dominates the values in the registers assigned to input field devices.
• During the program scan, the true/false output of a rung/sentence/statement will override the values in the registers until the next scan of the communication port or input field device scan.

The first several projects are designed to reveal the unique behavior of a specific controller regarding the above factors. To emphasis this behavior, a project is created and downloaded to the controller’s RAM without a program. This isolates the values of the registers to the influence of Input scan and the device connected to the communication port. This project exercises field device states and database access via the development software, that is, writing values to the controller’s database from your development software, manipulating the state of input devices and observing (reading) the result in those same registers in the controller’s RAM. This is repeated for the RUN mode and in the Program mode and integrating cycling the controller On and Off. This establishes the controller’s behavior without a program.

The next project adds a single rung, sentence or logical statement that examines the state of a single bit in a memory register that is not associated with any of the registers assigned to input or output field devices. The state of that single bit is examined and writes a result to another bit in a register that is not associated with inputs or outputs. This initial rung, the first rung or statement, demonstrates the controller’s ability to execute logic that does not read from input field devices nor write to output field devices. Logic that executes irrespective of the state of field devices.

Once you have observed logic executing without the registers storing the state of input or output devices, then I/O is integrated into that single rung of logic.

The object of any PLC Programming Training Course begins by establishing the nature of the controller’s scan in RUN mode and the Program mode, first without any logic, then with internal logic and finally with external field devices via the registers that store their states. Everything is built upon this context.

Each PLC Programming Training Course that we create begins with these identical projects and all follow the same path from the beginning.

Each PLC Programming Training Course continues to simple rungs of logic, then full demonstration of the five original instructions that mimic basic relays and latching relays. XIC, XIO, OTE, OTL and OTU.

The next series of projects exercise the instructions that count, counters count events and timers count units of time. These instructions include TON, TOF, RTO, RES, CTU and CTD.

The third PLC Programming Training Course that we created, CCW w/Micro800 controllers, follows the same sequence although the instructions have slightly different mnemonics, such as SET and RESET instead of Latch and Unlatch.

As the learner moves into a new platform, they fell right at home. Some of the houses look different but it is a familiar neighborhood and easy to find your way.