Automating with STEP 7 in LAD and FBD: SIMATIC S7-300/400 Programmable Controllers

This is an excellent textbook for those of you who program (or want to program) Siemens S7 PLC's in ladder or FBD. Anyone who uses the Siemens programmable devices knows that the information provided by Siemens leaves something to be desired. Usually the German to English translation misses the mark, in that the technical details are captured well, but you may not know how to actually program and use the dang thing by simply reading the help info. Google helps, as does YouTube, but I am a book guy for this sort of info first and foremost. This book and author was recommended to me by my local Siemens technical representative, an actual Siemens Automation employee no less!The one and only possible negative of this book is that it is somewhat pricey, but what the heck, its the very best there is, and there's no way to get this at Walmart :)I am so impressed with this that I would consider buying all of the books that this author has written.

It is full of useful and pertinent info for the electrician suddenly thrust into the Siemens world. It has been extremely helpful to me

Good Buy

As a Logix 5000 programmer, I was looking for a book to help me understand Siemens' 30 year old S7-300 technology (yes I know as a product it is still being sold, but the technology is 30 years old!) This book also looks like it came from 30 years ago. Very dry, very few screenshots or examples, same type face throughout with no visual emphasis on key concepts or important points. Not organized how a programmer would go about doing a project. The section on IEC timers is 2 paragraphs long...that's a key piece of PLC programming that should have a lot more emphasis. It's also poorly indexed so it doesn't even work very well as a reference book. Get "Step 7 in 7 Steps" a much better organized and presented book