SPS/IPC/Drives Recap
I planned a comprehensive roundup of news from SPS/IPC/Drives with links to all the show news from around the web, but Eoin Ó Riain beat me to it. So just go there: http://instrumentsignpost.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/largest-automation-event-in-2010/ For PROFIBUS and PROFINET news you can revisit my posts: SPS Show Report 2010, Welcome to the PI Booth SPS Show Report…
Read MoreGet on the Bus
“Get on the Bus” was the working title I used for an article that became “Fieldbus in the Field,” the recent Applied Automation cover story. Jim Cahill’s recent post “Digital Busses Team Up for Successful Results” made me realize that I had not linked to the article. The point of the article (as was the…
Read MoreSPS Show Report 2010, Around the Show
Before I had time to leave the PI booth, at the Phoenix Contact station I was handed a Tiger chip. Except they’re not calling it “Tiger” anymore; it’s just called TPS-1. This ASIC is intended for simple PROFINET IO devices. Right next to their station was the Innovasic station. Keith Prettyjohns introduces their solution in…
Read MoreSPS Show Report 2010, PROFIBUS and PROFINET News
PI schedules a press conference at every SPS/IPC/Drives Show to highlight the news. The news this time included PROFINET in Process Automation, PROFIenergy Certification, and IO-Link standardization. PROFINET in Process Automation. PROFIBUS DP has long been a backbone for PROFIBUS PA. PROFIBUS DP and PROFIBUS PA use the same protocol but have different physical layers. …
Read MoreSPS Show Report 2010, Technologies in the PI Booth
Here is a pictorial tour of the PI booth, featuring the technologies presented. You can click any of the images below for a larger version. PROFINET. There were two PROFINET walls with many products. Here’s one of them: PROFIBUS. PROFIBUS still plays an important role, especially in Process Automation. Here are the two walls highlighting…
Read MoreSPS Show Report 2010, Welcome to the PI Booth
The SPS/IPC/Drives Show gets bigger every year. It is eclipsing the Hanover Fair as the premier global automation trade show. It would be nice to not have to travel to Germany over Thanksgiving week for it, but the North American shows are gone as I lamented before. The show itself is huge with 90,000 square…
Read MoreiPar Server
The iPar Server is not an Internet tool for scoring your golf game; it’s a parameter repository to help in device replacement. One of the topics we don’t have time to cover in our PROFIBUS and PROFINET one-day training classes is the iPar Server. iPar is short for iParameter. It’s another example of the depth…
Read MorePROFIsafe 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…
Read MorePROFINET 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…
Read MoreDenver PROFINET Bandwidth
Rocky Mountain High… er, highlights, from the PROFINET one-day training class in Denver on September 2: It seems bandwidth was on the minds of some attendees, especially the few IT folks there. We are always glad to see IT folks attend, of course – anything we can do to help foster IT’s understanding of automation…
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