Back to Basics 5: Industrial Training

In 2013, not long after leaving Wright Industries and going back out on my own, I taught my first PLC class for Automation Training, a Canadian company. I drove to Raleigh, NC, unpacked the equipment and set it up. It was an Allen-Bradley SLC 500 class, a PLC which I have worked with since it was released in the early 1990s.

Little did I know at the time that industrial training would become a big part of what I do. I still contract to them, but things have slowed down a lot over the past year. The last class I taught for them was last November, 2024.

The pictures above show some typical small class setups in hotel conference rooms. They either ship the equipment or I drive it to the location, teach the class (usually 4 days long), pack it up and either ship it or carry it back to my shop. At this point I have taught over 150 classes for AT. I teach all Allen-Bradley and Siemens platforms as well as Omron CX-One and Wonderware. Training manuals are well tested, but classes are necessarily generic as students come from everywhere.

In about 2016 I started teaching interns at Automation NTH, an engineering and machine building company near Nashville. I also taught some of their customers using my initial PLC Hardware and Programming book released the same year. I taught both at their facility and at my own commercial office, which I leased and started building out in about 2017. The picture at the right above is at my place in about 2019.

Automation NTH started contracting me for a couple of weeks a month in 2021, after the pandemic and the tornado. I did this until October 2024, when again, things slowed down, for them and for me…

I also started teaching my own classes in 2018, at my own place and occasionally at customer facilities. In addition to the cool factory, it had a pretty nice class area shown at upper left. I could handle up to 8 students per class, more if they were doing labs.

All that fun stuff was destroyed in 2020, but I bought an old house to replace it in July of that year. The middle picture above shows my training room before I improved it a few months ago, the picture on the right shows the improvements soon after I put them in. No more plastic tables or projector. I can teach four students very comfortably, I suppose more in a pinch…

Things have slowed down with my own classes also. I have an added dilemma of a bunch of surplus old PLC training equipment that magically appeared here a couple of months ago, but I am building a storage place next to the house that will help solve my problem. Until then I don’t plan on having any classes here.

I still very much love to teach classes. I held a fun 2 week workshop in January 2024 that I can do pretty much whenever for up to 4 people, and can also teach classes for as few as one student as time allows.

Hack Frank!

Here’s a great hack: My normal rate for system integration jobs is $120/hour. That includes design, programming, CAD, troubleshooting or whatever. But I can teach a class to an individual person at my facility for $600/day. For 2 people or more from the same company I give a 10% discount.

Have a design project or need a program written? Come here to my place in Lebanon, Tennessee near Nashville and work with me on your project! Not only will you get inexpensive design and programming services, but you will learn to do it yourself! Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Omron, Beckhoff, CODESYS, Automation Direct, CAD, 3D printing, wiring… learn it all!

Or just sign up for a class. I realize most training is paid for by companies rather than individuals. I can even come to your plant.

This is the final “Back to Basics” or “Frank begging” post on the Primer, we will be moving on to other subjects. Hit me up!