San Antonio was a good venue for the PROFIBUS class this week. But I was happy to leave before any hurricanes headed there (or missed it or went elsewhere). The class seemed typical, but the course evaluations always surprise me some. The surprise here was that 3-4 people said the class was “too long.” Most marked the length as just right, but we definitely need to consider the length for next year. We got a few requests for hands-on. There just isn’t time for that with a group this big, but we could introduce more demos, I suppose. There were a few other requests for more or less detail on a specific topic. Most of the attendees were already familiar with fieldbuses in general; this is atypical. Mt favorite comment: “First exposure to PROFI. Very good intro for me. Thanks.”
Lunch is always interesting since I get to chat with users. In San Antonio, I sat next to some folks from a device manufacturer who are looking at adding PROFINET. I hope to see them at our Chicago PROFINET Developer Workshop.
After the event we roll in a bar to encourage attendees to stay and discuss their projects or float questions they did not get a chance to bring up during the class. With chilled beverage in hand in San Antonio I had an interesting conversation about where the silicon is going for implementing fieldbuses and Industrial Ethernets. Apparently it’s going further than ASICs and FPGAs.