A Free Industrial Automation Course With Certificate: A 12-Week Curriculum

You can put together an industrial automation free course with certificate from courses that already exist: three weeks of PLC programming, then HMI, SCADA, drives, instrumentation and PID, industrial networks and machine safety. This 12-week plan links each week to a complete free course on edwartens.com, with its own assessment and an optional certificate.

The plan is written for anyone starting from little or no automation background, anywhere. We have added certificate prices for learners in Nigeria and South Africa, but the plan itself is the same wherever you are.

How the plan works

Each block below is one free course, or two short ones. Every course has credited video lessons from independent YouTube creators, written notes with worked examples, a practice task in every module and one final assessment: 15 questions drawn from the whole course, 60% to pass, three attempts, then a fresh paper after 24 hours. You need a free account so your progress is saved.

The module time estimates on these eight courses add up to about 130 hours, so plan for 10 to 12 hours a week. If you have less time, stretch the plan to 16 or 20 weeks rather than skipping the practice tasks. The tasks are where the learning happens.

Week 1: how a PLC works, before any software

Start Siemens TIA Portal and work through its first three modules: what automation is and what a PLC does, the hardware and the scan cycle, and wiring basics with sinking, sourcing and 24 V DC. None of this needs software. You finish the week able to list a machine's inputs and outputs, sketch a PLC rack and draw the wiring for a start button, a stop button and a proximity sensor.

If you are new to electrical work, use spare time this week to begin Industrial Motor Control, which covers contactors, overloads and starters. It is long, so treat it as a companion rather than something to finish now.

Weeks 2–3: ladder logic in TIA Portal

Install the TIA Portal trial when the course tells you to, at the start of week 2, not before. Siemens' support entry for its trial software says you can test it for 21 days, and the TIA course is paced so its hands-on work fits inside that window.

Over these two weeks you create your first project, build a tag table, run programs in PLCSIM, and work through contacts and coils, logic gates, latching and interlocks, timers, counters, edge detection, comparators, maths, analog scaling, function blocks and a first HMI screen. The course ends with a capstone: a bottle-filling plant with a conveyor, a timed fill valve, a scaled level transmitter, alarms, a batch counter and manual and auto modes.

Would you rather learn Rockwell? Swap in Allen-Bradley Studio 5000, a beginner course that uses Logix Emulate in place of a controller. The rest of the plan still works.

Week 4: HMI panels with WinCC

Stay inside the trial window and take Siemens TIA Portal HMI: KTP and Comfort Panels with WinCC. You add a panel and connect it to the PLC, then build buttons, indicators, numeric fields, bar graphs, screen navigation, trends, alarms, recipes, pop-ups and faceplates, all tested in the runtime simulator.

This is the last week that relies on the Siemens trial for hands-on work, so finish the practice tasks before moving on.

Week 5: SCADA with Ignition

Take Ignition SCADA: tags, device connections, the Designer, alarms, history, reporting, MQTT and Perspective. Inductive Automation offers Ignition Maker Edition free for personal, non-commercial use, and its own training site, Inductive University, is free as well, including its Ignition credential. Use both. The maker's own training is excellent, and our course adds notes, practice tasks and an assessment around it.

Week 6: variable frequency drives

Take Variable Frequency Drives. No software is required. You cover power wiring, keypad parameters, two-wire and three-wire terminal control, speed references from a potentiometer or 4–20 mA, PLC control, Modbus RTU and fieldbus control, drive safety functions and troubleshooting. If you can get near a small drive and motor at work or college, every exercise can be done for real.

Weeks 7–8: instrumentation and PID loops

Take Industrial Instrumentation and Process Control first: pressure, level, flow and temperature measurement, 4–20 mA loops, control valves, P&IDs, HART and calibration. It needs no software.

Then take PID Control for PLC Engineers. Its theory modules need no software: what P, I and D each do, tuning from a step test, anti-windup and filtering. The later modules show PID on Allen-Bradley controllers. If you still have Siemens access, Siemens TIA Portal PID Compact and Analog Processing is a short alternative with a simulated tank.

Weeks 9–10: industrial communication

Take Industrial Communication, the longest course in the plan. It runs from networks, IP and subnets through RS-485 and Modbus, PROFIBUS, PROFINET and EtherNet/IP, remote I/O, PLC-to-PLC links, OPC UA and wireless. Some of the practice uses free Modbus simulators and Wireshark; the TIA Portal modules can be studied from the notes if your trial has ended.

If you want to go further on one network, PROFINET and Industrial Ethernet is the next step.

Weeks 11–12: machine safety and review

Take Siemens Safety Integrated: functional safety, F-CPUs and F-modules, PROFIsafe, one-out-of-one and one-out-of-two inputs, E-stop, safety doors, two-hand control and drive safety. The hands-on parts need STEP 7 Safety. If your Siemens trial has ended, work through the notes and videos, do the practice tasks on paper, and come back to the software when you can use it at work, at college or at a training centre. The final assessment is a question paper, so you can still sit it.

Use the second week to review. Retake any practice task you skipped and rebuild the week 2–3 capstone from memory.

The courses, levels and hours

Keep a project file as you go

A certificate says you passed. A project file shows what you can do. Keep one folder for the whole 12 weeks: the TIA Portal capstone archive, screenshots of your HMI screens and Ignition project, your VFD parameter notes, your loop tuning trends and a short written description of each. When an interviewer asks what you have built, open the folder. It costs nothing, and it gives you something concrete to talk through.

About software trials

Vendor trials are generous, but they are time-limited and the plan is not. That is why the Siemens-heavy work sits in weeks 2 to 4, and why weeks 5 to 8 use Ignition's free Maker Edition or no software at all. If you add the optional Factory I/O virtual commissioning course, note that Factory I/O offers a 30-day free trial and also needs TIA Portal, so take it inside your Siemens window.

What the certificates would cost

The eight courses are free. Certificates are optional, one per course, and bought only after you pass. Five of the eight are priced as beginner courses and three as intermediate.

Each certificate is a small one-off fee, from US$2.99 for a beginner course, with the intermediate ones costing a little more. Checkout shows your price before you pay.

You do not need all eight. Most learners are better served by one or two certificates for the courses closest to the job they want, plus a project file they can show.

Start week 1

Everything above is on the free course catalogue, and our free PLC training guide explains the PLC courses in more detail. Begin with Siemens TIA Portal today. Learning and assessments are free; the certificate is an optional EDWartens certificate of completion with a code anyone can check at edwartens.com/verification. It is not a vendor certification or an accredited qualification. Create a free account to save your progress.

Take the free course

PLC programming · Beginner · Free

Siemens TIA Portal

SCADA · Beginner · Free

Ignition SCADA by Inductive Automation

Instrumentation · Beginner · Free

Industrial Instrumentation and Process Control

Industrial networks · Intermediate · Free

Industrial Communication: Serial, Fieldbus, Ethernet, Modbus, PROFINET and OPC UA