PLC Practical Training with Demo Videos: A Solid Foundation for SIEMENS SIMATIC S7 Hardware and Software

This book and its supplemental demo videos make up an excellent practical training program that provides the foundation for installation, configuration, activation, troubleshooting and maintenance of Siemens SIMATIC S7 PLCs (programmable Logic Controllers) in an industrial environment.

The 5 chapters of this book and its videos serve as an exhaustive collection of my step-by-step tutorials on PLCs for beginners and advanced learners alike. If you fall in the following categories of people, you will find this book very helpful:

• Engineers
• Electricians
• Instrumentation technicians
• Automation professionals
• Graduates and students
• People with no background in PLC programming but looking to build PLC programming skills

This book is accompanied with 33 in-depth HD demo videos. In these videos, I use a practical approach to simplify everything you need to understand to help you speed up your learning of PLCs in general, and of Siemens S7 PLCs specifically.

Because I assume you have little or no knowledge of PLCs, I strongly urge you to digest all the contents of this book and its supplemental demo videos (33 episodes). This will not only help you build an in-depth knowledge of PLCs in general; it will also help you gain a lot of job skills and experience you need to be able to install and configure Siemens PLCs.

In this book I teach the fundamentals of SIMATIC S7 PLCs. I also touch advanced topics, such as PLC networks, virtual CPU, CPU models and what their codes mean, digital input and output configurations, and so much more. The knowledge you gain from this training will put you on the path to becoming a paid professional in the field of PLCs.

The quickest way to build skills in PLC hardware and software is to use real-world scenarios and industrial applications. The real-world scenarios and industrial applications I treat in this book and the demo videos will help you learn better and faster many of the functions and features of both the S7 PLC family and the Step 7 software platform.

If all you use is just a PLC user manual or S7 help contents, you cannot become a skillful PLC programmer. That is why I have designed this training program to help you develop skills by teaching you PLC hardware configuration and programming step by step. This will give you a big head start if you have never installed or configured a PLC before.

One of the questions I get asked often by beginners is, where can I get a free download of Siemens PLC software to practice? I provide later in this book links to a free version of the SIMATIC S7 PLC Software which is essentially the programming environment you need to practice.

In Chapter 3, I also provide two hassle-free download links for the free edition of SIMATIC STEP 7. This will help you get hands-on practice because you can use it to run and test your PLC programs on a PC or Mac. I do not only show you how to get this important Siemens automation software for free and without hassle, I also show how to install, configure, navigate and use them to program Siemens PLCs.

Finally, if you have questions or need further help, you can use the support link I provide in Chapter 4. I will get back to you very quickly.