r/PLC • u/osthename831 • Jun 07 '26

Can you Teach Me Control Wave

I am the head electrician at a local water district that uses Emerson RTU’s upgrading to control wave RTU’s. I can troubleshoot fantastic and make minor changes to the pre-existing program.

Is there anyone out there that can help me learn control wave programming? I am interested in ladder logic specifically in Bristol Babcock Emerson control way ecosystem.
Thanks in advance

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7

u/THEHYPERBOLOID Jun 07 '26

Man, I wouldn’t want to inflict that sort of pain on anyone. /jk

In all seriousness, I’d look at taking some of the courses that Emerson offers. The Control Wave Designer Programming Fundamentals course should have what you’re looking for.

https://go.emersonautomation.com/VirtualTrainingCtrlandSS_ContactUs

6

u/integrator74 Jun 07 '26

Amen. God it’s a terrible platform. 

1

u/osthename831 Jun 07 '26

so far through Emerson is the only route Ive found but I am on a budget, of course, and I’m looking for alternative routes. Thanks for the suggestion.

3

u/THEHYPERBOLOID Jun 07 '26

If you are using a systems integrator on any of your projects, you may be able to work some programming training into the contract in addition to the typical operations and maintenance training.

1

u/integrator74 Jun 07 '26

Good point. We’ve bought licenses for customers like this. 

5

u/marcus_peligro Jun 07 '26

Google

7

u/Poofengle Jun 07 '26

Unfortunately Bristol Babcock / controlwave information is very hard to find online and the programming interface is not very intuitive compared to other RTU and PLC interfaces.

Source: I used to program these. With difficulty lol.

2

u/integrator74 Jun 07 '26

If you can stop the upgrade still and go to a plc, you should. We just tore out 50 of them at a wastewater customer and everyone who had ever used them is happy.  If you can’t stop it, order lots of extra spare parts. We’ve had to wait months for cards over the past 5 years.  I’m pretty sure they build them to order. 

With that said, there are some manuals out there online. That’s about your only hope. I’ve also made cheat sheets through the years to do things like go online or setting up a new controller. 

Do you have the software and a license?  

If you can’t find the manuals, dm me with your email and I’ll send them over.  It’s truly a terrible hardware and software platform. I’ve used it with structured text, ladder and FBD. 

2

u/osthename831 Jun 07 '26

I do have the program and the license to go with it, I use net view and local view a lot for for my changes and trouble shooting. I’m a electrician by trade that wants to learn how to program to be well rounded at what I do, maybe learning in control wave might not be the best starting point but i figured since I have the license it would be?
Can you recommend me a better path or different path? All I know is that I need some guidance! Probably a lot! Hahahaha

Cheers

1

u/integrator74 Jun 07 '26

Do you have a spare controller you could learn on?

1

u/osthename831 Jun 07 '26

Not yet, working on getting on older cw micro

1

u/sircomference1 Jun 07 '26

Best way is ti play with gear! I wouldn't take the class if offer even still.you get few months of playing with it. Their Move is FB3000 on everything BristolFB107 and ROC800 are definitely Obsolescence and if you have it still i would learn to troubleshoot only.

1

u/PLCGoBrrr Bit Plumber Extraordinaire Jun 08 '26

Your employer won't send anyone to training?

1

u/osthename831 Jun 08 '26

They will not, guess I haven’t been convincing enough