PLC-Course

🎛️ PLC-FastTrack

An interactive, fast-track course based on Programmable Logic Controllers, 5th Edition by W. Bolton (Newnes, 2009).

Mission: Move beyond passive reading. In 6 weeks, go from zero PLC knowledge to designing, documenting, and debugging IEC 61131-3 programs with confidence.

📜 Why This Repo Exists

Bolton’s book is a fantastic foundation — 398 pages covering architecture, the five IEC 61131-3 languages, timers, counters, safety, and fault diagnosis. But reading isn’t doing. This repo turns the book into:

6 sprints of structured study (one per week)
Cheat sheets that compress each chapter to one page
Interactive tools that run in the browser — scan cycle, number bases, timers/counters, and a full car-factory simulator
Challenge labs that auto-grade your structured text submissions
Flashcards (Anki + Obsidian) for spaced-repetition retention
Visual assets (Mermaid sources) you can edit and remix

🗺️ Course Map

Step	Sprint	Bolton Chapters
📚	Start here	Preface
0	Orientation	—
1	Architecture & I/O	1–2
2	Digital Foundations	3–4
3	Ladder & FBD	5
4	IL, ST, SFC	6
5	Timers, Counters, Registers	7–12
6	Design & Safety	13–14
🏆	Capstone — Burner Start-up Sequence	Synthesis

Path: Start → 0 → 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → 6 → 🏆

The flowchart version of this map is rendered live on the course site.

🏃 The Six Sprints

#	Sprint	Bolton Chapters	Core Concept
1	Architecture & I/O	1–2	A PLC is a hardened computer that scans inputs, runs logic, updates outputs.
2	Digital Foundations	3–4	PLCs think in bits — fluency in binary, octal, hex, and BCD is mandatory.
3	Ladder & FBD	5	Ladder logic is graphical Boolean algebra disguised as a relay schematic.
4	IEC 61131-3 Languages	6	Five languages, one standard — pick the right tool for each part of the program.
5	Timers, Counters, Registers	7–12	Real automation is mostly about time, count, and memory.
6	Design & Safety	13–14	Working code is easy. Safe, debuggable, maintainable code is engineering.

Plus the Capstone — a complete burner start-up sequence in SFC.

⚡ Quick Start

Fork this repo so you can track your progress in your own copy.
Open an Issue from the sprint-progress.md template — one for each sprint.
Start with Sprint 0: Orientation to take the pre-assessment.
Work one sprint per week. Each sprint = ~5–7 hours.
Submit lab solutions as PRs. The CI auto-grades structured text against test vectors.
Drop into Discussions when you get stuck or want to share a slick rung.

🧰 What’s In The Box

plc-fasttrack/
├── sprints/              # The six-week curriculum
├── visuals/              # Mermaid diagram sources
├── interactive-tools/    # Streamlit + Gradio simulators
├── workbooks/            # Jupyter notebooks
├── challenge-labs/       # Auto-graded structured text labs
├── flashcards/           # Anki deck + Obsidian markdown
├── reference/            # Glossary, quickref, manufacturer mapping
└── docs/                 # GitHub Pages source

🌐 Live Course Site

GitHub Pages renders this as a browsable course at https://gaferto612.github.io/PLC-Course/, with every sprint, cheat sheet, lab and reference reachable from the side nav.

🛠️ Stack

Markdown + Mermaid for content (renders natively on GitHub)
Streamlit / Gradio for interactive tools
Jupyter for workbooks
Python for the auto-grader and Streamlit apps
Anki + Obsidian for flashcards
GitHub Actions for the daily-challenge bot and lab CI
GitHub Pages (MkDocs Material) for the public course site

🤝 Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. PRs welcome for additional labs, manufacturer translations, and bug fixes in the auto-grader.

📚 Source Text

Bolton, W. (2009). Programmable Logic Controllers (5th ed.). Newnes / Elsevier. ISBN: 978-1-85617-751-1.

This repo is a study companion — it does not reproduce the book. You’ll need a copy of Bolton to follow along.

⚖️ License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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