Starting from Scratch

Hello Ignition Guru's,

I am curious to learn how you all learned how to use IA, Vision, and even PLC's like Studio5000. I know experience is the best teacher but I am interested in any courses, video channels, or resources that helped you grasp these tools.

So far, I learned how navigate in Designer and Studio5000 mainly to find tag references to troubleshoot why a signal isn't responding accordingly. I am also comfortable doing some basic surface level editing on the GUI.

My goal would be to learn how to write scripts, create a control screen from scratch, and be able to add new icons for any new equipment we install at our facility. I have a lot of time at work to learn new skills and this is a skill that I would like to begin honing. Not sure if this is the place to ask but if it is not I'd be happy to find out where else I can ask.

I am a process engineer (less than 2 years) at a small chemical manufacturing plant. I am the only engineer onsite aside from my plant manager who is also a chemical engineer. As such, I get full access to control system but I rarely make any major changes for fear of messing something up. We previously had a 40+ year old PLC veteran onsite part time who I would learn from but he is more and more becoming a distant consultant that only comes if there is an emergency and there usually are not many.

Our plant mainly has on/off valves, level sensors on 4-20 mA, pressure transmitters at 4-20 mA ,and temperature transmitters all at 4-20 mA. We have 3 flow meters onsite and a control valve.

As an undergraduate I gained experience with Matlab, basic Python, and modifying some scripts in openFOAM to improve a ion transport model on a windows subsystem for linux so I am comfortable navigating through new softwares but not sure how else that is beneficial to my current goal of understanding Ignition and Studio5000.

Anything helps. Thank you!

For Ignition, you cant beat the Inductive Automation Ignition University. 100s of hours of tutorials, and you can download ignition for free and follow along with your gateway/designer.

For studio 5000, just doing more projects, or reviewing other peoples projects. Shane Welcher on youtube has a ton of video tutorials for logix. If your work can spare a test rack and processor, set one up and begin banging away, especially if you can connect it to your ignition gateway.

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