bradner

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About bradner

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    Hi, I am New!

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  • Country Canada
  1. Hi everyone. I work in a food processing facility in the production floor and have been for the past 12 years. Nothing too fancy as far as my work is - just putting milk in a bottle. I've always liked computers and am intrigued by the PLC people my company hires to do its projects. I'm wondering what someone needs to get into this as a career. Do I need first an electrical engineering degree (the guys I've met seem to have electrical tickets - not necessarily engineers)? My current education is I finished high school and I have a 2 year food science degree from the early 1990's. No programming or electrical background. I'm in my early 40's now and wondering if I've missed the boat for this career... From my limited work experience, I see the food industry getting more and more PLC orientated. If my company has to outsource PLC programmers they obviously need one. I highly doubt they would give me a leave of absence for a couple years to get a degree. (I'm not even sure what exact training I need yet). I've asked what the programmers roughly make for a living but they never say. Is it possible to make over $50,000/year in the field? If so, whats a typical range? - I'd guess 50-75,000/year as the electricians make in my area. I feel I have a good skill set for the food industry as I do understand the fundamentals of how a bottling plant works - at least I can "speak" their lingo so to speak. If I could do PLC programming I would really be an asset in the food industry! Pardon my ignorance to the education part of it but thats why I'm here asking some of you. I am up in Vancouver, Canada & I'm going to look at BCIT (a local trade school) to see what they offer but it likely is a full time program and unfortunately I can't cut my income to zero right now so what would be a good first learning step or steps or honestly do I really need to hit it full time at school? Thanks everyone in advance for any input! <edit>: IF I wanted to keep working at my current and try to learn PLC's on my own - can anyone rattle off a few books to start with? Remember I have no real knowledge of PLCs right now. Thx again!