The PLC Beginner Mega-Project is more than a set of tutorials — it’s a complete learning journey. Instead of teaching concepts in isolation, every lesson is connected to a real packaging line project built step by step in Siemens TIA Portal. We start from zero, covering the essentials like hardware configuration, tag tables, and memory areas, before moving into logic, timers, counters, interlocks, and state machines. As the project grows, we introduce alarms, HMI design, and monitoring tools, always pausing to explain the theory behind each step. By the end of the series, you’ll not only understand how each instruction works but also see how it fits into an industrial system. This structured approach gives you the practical skills and confidence to participate in real PLC projects and prepares you for advanced topics in automation.
The Mega Beginner Project begins here! In this episode, we set the foundation for everything to come. You’ll step inside Siemens TIA Portal for the very first time, create a new project, add a PLC CPU, and learn how to use tag tables to name inputs and outputs in a clean, professional way. Along the way, we’ll talk about why naming and organization matter, and how this “digital brain” will eventually control our entire bottle-filling and packaging line. By the end of Episode 1, you’ll have your very first PLC project ready — the first building block of our automation journey.
Now it’s time to give that digital brain a way to sense and interact with the world. In this episode, we explore one of the most fundamental concepts in automation: Inputs and Outputs (I/O). Inputs are the eyes and ears of the PLC — buttons, sensors, and switches that tell it what’s happening on the production line. Outputs are its hands — motors, lamps, and valves that carry out decisions. You’ll also learn about the PLC scan cycle, the three-step rhythm of reading inputs, executing logic, and updating outputs, all happening in milliseconds. By the end of this video, you’ll define real I/O for our packaging line in TIA Portal and see how proper naming and organization prepare us for programming.
it’s finally time to bring our system to life. In this episode, we dive into the basics of Ladder Logic — the most widely used PLC programming language. You’ll learn how contacts (normally open and normally closed) and coils work together to control outputs, just like electrical relay diagrams. Step by step, we’ll build and test our very first rung of logic in TIA Portal: a Start/Stop circuit for the conveyor motor. By the end, you’ll not only understand how Ladder Logic flows like electricity across a rung but also see your first real automation behavior running in simulation. This is the moment your PLC program truly begins to think.
In Episode 3, we built our first Ladder Logic rung to control a conveyor motor. But there was a problem: the motor only ran while the Start button was held down. That’s not how real machines behave. In this episode, we fix that by introducing latching circuits and interlocks — two core concepts that make automation practical and safe. You’ll learn how to create a latch so the motor stays ON after Start is pressed, and how to add an Emergency Stop (Estop) that instantly overrides everything for safety. Step by step in TIA Portal, we’ll build, simulate, and test a circuit that feels just like what you’d find on a real production line. By the end, you’ll have your first professional-grade control logic: efficient, realistic, and safe.
Up to this point, our project has focused on wiring logic, latching, and interlocks — but machines don’t just respond instantly; they also need to act over time. That’s where timers come in. In Episode 5, we introduce the three essential Siemens timers — TON (On Delay), TOF (Off Delay), and TP (Pulse) — and show how they shape real-world automation. From holding a motor on after a stop signal to pulsing a reject solenoid for milliseconds, timers make processes precise and repeatable. Together, we’ll program the filling station of our packaging line: bottles will pause under the nozzle, fill for exactly five seconds, and wait a little longer before moving on. By combining TON, TP, and TOF, you’ll build a complete 11-second filling cycle that mirrors real bottling plants. This is your first taste of process automation — where logic meets time to create smooth, reliable production.
In Episode 5, we discovered how timers give machines the ability to act over time — from delays to pulses to full process cycles. Now, in Episode 6, we take a closer look at the TON (On-Delay Timer) by using it to build one of the most common PLC patterns: the flasher circuit. Flashers are everywhere in industry — stacklights that blink during alarms, warning beacons that pulse during machine cycles, or lamps that flash to guide operators.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to program a TON so it continuously toggles ON and OFF, generating a square-wave signal inside the PLC. Step by step in TIA Portal, we’ll create a 500 ms flasher that drives a Blue Lamp while the filling process is active. Along the way, you’ll see how the PLC scan cycle handles repeating timers, how to adjust flashing speed simply by changing presets, and why this simple technique is so useful in real factories.
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