Stage 3 is active! Our first class will be held Tuesday, October 27 at 10:00AM EST. Remember if you are interested and cannot make that time, leave your questions on the Training section of the forum and they will be answered during the webinar. Webinars will be posted within 24 hours of each class and will be available to all Stage 3 subscribers. Just so it is clear, interaction during the Webinar with the instructor will be via chat. The instructor will have a microphone and will use it for explanations. Students will be able to view, hear and interact via the chat interface. This will allow participation from the students without background noise or other interruptions to the class. You may visit here for pricing and details. 

Our training expects the student to have the RSLogix500 software and a SLC500 system available to complete the lessons. Our assumption has been that many of the students will be located at facilities where those items are available. There are many of you for which this is not a valid assumption. Remember that there is free software available for the Micrologix 1100 processor. You can find it here. That is a direct link. The download page can be found here. We will be adding support for the Micrologix in our training classes in the next 2-3 weeks. Much of the training for the SLC 500 can already be performed on the Micrologix as the instruction set is very similar. The 1100 also has an Ethernet port built in that allows easy communication with most computers. Micrologix 1100’s can be found on Ebay starting at $200US as of this writing.

Ok, some of you are going to go to the download page and realize that the software can also be used to configure the Micrologix 1000. If that is all you can afford, then that is better than nothing - obviously. However, the 1000 is limited to offline programming. Why is this important? First, online programming is part of our training. You can’t have a well rounded training class without learning to program online. More important, most systems should have a processor that allows online programming. Without online programming the machine or process will have to be stopped and production loss will occur and angry people will appear. It is better than nothing and you can learn certain skills with it. If that is all you can afford at this time then Micrologix 1000 can be found on Ebay for under $100.  You will also need to buy a cable to be able to connect it to a serial port on a computer. Oh and yes you will need a serial port or a USB adapter for your computer. 

Do not – I repeat – do not buy a Micrologix other than the 1100 or the 1000. The free software will not work with other Micrologix systems (ie, 1200, 1500). Hope this information helps! See you in class!