PROFIsafe at ISA
UPDATED (scroll to bottom for additions) In Houston this year I was on the functional safety panel with colleagues from HART Communication Foundation and Fieldbus Foundation plus one user. The 45 or so attendees were mostly interested in hearing from the user and mostly about Foundation Fieldbus. To make up for that, I promised the…
PROFIBUS News from Emerson Exchange
I’m in Houston and headed for the ISA Week sessions tomorrow. I’ll be on a panel discussing functional safety, so look for a post on that later this week. In the meantime, James Powell was presenting at Emerson Exchange last week and provided this report: The end of the bus wars have led to some…
Not Enough Detail in Toronto
Outside Toronto for the PROFINET one-day training class, I was in one of my old neighborhoods (I’ve lived a lot of places). On the downside, I was so wrapped up with the class that I did not have time to visit my old Avantis colleagues. On the upside, the class went very well. When the…
PROFINET or Ethernet in Montreal?
I’m just back from a week in Canada where we held PROFINET one-day training classes in Toronto and Montreal. I was really pleased by the engagement of the attendees in both cities. They asked really good questions. Here are a couple questions from Montreal: “Where should we use PROFINET instead of Ethernet?” “Tell me about…
Long, Long Ago in the Land of Cleve
As I was flying back from the Cleveland PROFINET one-day training class I had some time to compose a few thoughts about the class and the memories it conjured up from my own Cleveland area work history. There were a few developers of automation devices in the class. The class provided an overview, but we try to…
PROFINET can use a Best Buy Ethernet Switch, really?
PROFINET can use a Best Buy Ethernet Switch, really? Yes, really. At the Atlanta PROFINET one-day training class one of the attendees thought I was being “disingenuous” claiming that PROFINET can use an Ethernet switch from Best Buy. (I thought he meant I was lying, but the dictionary says that disingenuous is “lacking in candor;…
Multitasking on Industrial Ethernet
Automation World has an interesting article in the February issue and online: “Ethernet Protocols’ Flexibility A Boost For Manufacturing.” It manages to mention five different Industrial Ethernet protocols but then goes on to focus on PROFINET and Ethernet/IP. This is a sensible focus since PROFINET and Ethernet/IP are the market leaders. A recent study showed…
SPS Report 3: IO-Link
IO-Link is a fieldbus-neutral, point-to-point connection and communication method for intelligent IO. I think of it as HART for discrete because it superimposes a digital signal over the regular wiring. More information on IO-Link is at www.IO-Link.com. And for my past posts on the topic, use the IO-Link tag. IO-Link was big again this year:…
Five Criteria for Choosing an Industrial Ethernet
As Manny walked the exhibition floor at ISA he encountered device vendors who needed an Industrial Ethernet. PROFINET would have fit the bill for them, but some were leaning toward something else and some had already chosen something else. One of those device manufacturers encountered told Manny that Modbus/TCP was the most popular protocol. (Clearly…
Death of an EXPO – Life of Technology
PROFIBUS and PROFINET news from the last ISA EXPO: Manny was our lone PTO attendee at the ISA show this year. He compared its size to the ISA show in Edmonton. Those of us who had attended in the (not-really-so-distant) past recall the glory years. All the major companies were there. All the trade organizations…