Programmable Logic Controllers

I have taught courses in Computer Integrated Manufacturing and CNC Programming, and wanted to pick up PLC Programming as well. To do so, I needed a book I could teach myself from. When I looked at what Prentice - Hall had to offer, the boatload of examples and end of chapter problems drew me to this text. Learning to program from this text was a struggle until CH. 6, where the authors compare PLC programming to Digital Logic Gates. The light suddenly turned on. If you have relay logic or digital logic experience, you can learn to program PLC's pretty easily. If you don't have that background, I believe you can still learn to program from the text. The authors have a clear voice and excellent examples. You'll just have to work harder at it, and the light may not come on until you're deep into the book. The biggest hurdle seems to be learning to work with the ladder diagrams. That's just a matter of practice. But there's where my complaint comes with the book. I had expected that all of those end of chapter examples would give me lots of practice. What you don't get from this book are the answers unless you have the instructors manual (which unfortunately I didn't ask Prentice Hall for). Unless you're sitting in a classroom where you receive feedback from an instructor, think twice before buying this text. If they provide answers to every other exercise in the fifth edition, it would be a good text to teach yourself from.

I have used Webb three times as the text for my PLC course. Each time, the book provided the perfect complement to our Allen-Bradley PLC lab. The writing is clear and easy to understand. The examples are well-thought-out and provide valuable insight into the material. I have used two other PLC texts, both of which take a generic approach and try to cover EVERY BRAND of PLC on the market. In both cases, students found this approach overwhelming, unclear and confusing. I prefer a text like Webb that chooses one PLC to focus on and explores it thoroughly.