my father used to work at a company which made machines for the pharmacuticals (bad speller sorry) industry. he wrote software for the machines and he brought home a allen bradly SLC 500 plc. he has since left the company but forgot to take it back and i was wondering if aneyone has some projects of ideas of what to do with it.

Use it to run the best X-Mass light show on the block.
is it a 01,02,03,04 or 05?

Have it run your lawn sprinklers, or yard lights. Unfortunately you will need the programming software which is not cheap. You will also need a cable to connect from the programming computer to the PLC. Based on the type of PLC you have, hopefully you can use a serial port connection. That is the cheapest way to communicate. Otherwise you will need either a AB KT card (ISA or PCI slot desktop) or an AB PCMK card (credit card type for notebook) which each cost about $1500.  The programming language that AB (Rockwell Automation) is selling now is called Logix 500, about $500.00. You will also need a separate comnmunication program from AB which is called RSlinx. You may be able to find someone with an old version of IPDS (DOS based progranmming language) or ICOM software called AB500. The SLC500 PLC is a great little unit but it takes quite a bit of other stuff to get it up and running.

Yeah! I installed a SLC in my basement and every year I running an automation halloween show! I have SMC air valves I run off my air compressor, fog machines..etc...You can have massive fun with a PLC.

Chris
http://www.mrplc.com
Download sample PLC code.

Chris Elston
Automation & Controls Engineer
http://www.mrplc.com

A good suggestion would be to have your father take back the "borrowed" equipment that he "forgot" to take back.  Theft, no matter how you package it, is wrong.