TwinCAT 3 | Summary

This post is constantly updated with a brief summary of introdutory TwinCAT 3 PLC topics, like as “First Steps” or “Where to Start?”.

Fortunately, we have colleagues who have developed great content, so I’ve included links to their blogs, as well as links to my other posts related to the topic.

Remember that this page isn’t affiliated with BECKHOFF and MUST NOT be used as a official documentation. For that, please refer to the official BECKHOFF webpage.

All my content is free and the main goal is to provide TUTORIALS. If you plan to use ANY of it in production or application, it MUST be thoroughly tested before implemented (use the code at your own risk).

The first one is my Brazilian colleague - automacaoweb, who developed a blog page with “everything you need to know” to get started with BECKHOFF technology:

1. Overview (automacaoweb - Portuguese)

2. Installation and Download:
   • Download of the TwinCAT 3 software (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Installation of TwinCAT 3 (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Common issues during TwinCAT 3 installation and execution (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
3. First steps with TwinCAT:
   • First project in TwinCAT 3 (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Overview of the Programming Environment (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • First PLC project (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Structure of a PLC program (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Variable Declaration (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • DUT – Structures (Structs) (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Global Variables vs Local Variables (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • VISU – Visualizations (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Communication with Remote Target (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Installation of Real Time Driver (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Automatic I/O module scan – EtherCAT (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Link between PLC variables and I/O (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Activate Configuration and Load the PLC program (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Recipes – Through PLC code (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Install libraries (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Add libraries to the project (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Additional Tasks (Referenced Task) (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
4. Retentive vs Persistent Memories:
   • NOVRAM (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
5. Other functionalities:
   • Configure automatic PLC startup (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Pin Version (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Multiuser (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Multicore (Core Isolation) (automacaoweb - Portuguese)
   • Sync Unit (automacaoweb - Portuguese)

Continuing the list, If you prefer to watch videos, we have more portuguese-br content available on Beckhoff Brazil official page. You can access and watch directly on YouTube for free! The link to the complete playlist is here.

If English content isn’t a issue, we have this amazing TwinCAT 3 PLC Programming tutorial of Jakob Sagatowski (in English) available at YouTube.