PROFIBUS in a Chemical Plant
Brad Hart from PI North America member C&E Sales presented a PROFIBUS application story from a chemical plant at the General Assembly Meeting. It featured some AS-I, some PROFIBUS DP, some PROFIBUS PA, and some plans for PROFINET. The usual benefits were realized in wiring and related hardware savings plus labor savings. The real surprise…
Read MoreSafety Road Report
We interrupt this series on the General Assembly Meeting, to talk about the one-day training classes. Seems I haven’t had a chance to talk about recent PROFINET classes in San Jose and Kansas City and I’m headed out to Cleveland now for another one. We continually tweak the classes based on attendee feedback. Few people…
Read MorePROFINET in Process Industries
Continuing news from the General Assembly Meeting, PROFINET in the process industries was introduced by Jörg Freitag on Wednesday and expanded upon by Martin Raab on Thursday. First, let me make clear that PROFINET in process does not supplant PROFIBUS PA, it supplements it. PROFIBUS PA is suitable for hazardous environments; no Industrial Ethernet is. …
Read MoreCertification
Continuing with news from the PI North America General Assembly Meeting, Martin Raab of the PROFI Interface Center updated us on engineers and installers certified and products certified. Certification plays an important role in the PROFIBUS and PROFINET community. PI certifies PI Competence Centers (PICCs), PI Test Labs (PITLs), and PI Training Centers (PITCs). Each…
Read MoreAll Things PROFINET
We noticed that there was no one, single place to go for information about PROFINET. Hence, our new website: www.AllThingsPROFINET.com. The site is designed to provide a guided tour for visitors depending on their role in the organization. So a control engineer can step through a complete PROFINET project from start to finish. We provide…
Read MorePROFIBUS Planning Guide Available
The release of PROFIBUS Installation Guideline for Planning completes a three-part installation set. It’s now available for download online. Already available were PROFIBUS Installation Guideline for Cabling and Assembly and PROFIBUS Installation Guideline for Commissioning. For tips and techniques in planning, installing, and commissioning PROFIBUS attend one of our one-day training classes or Certified Network…
Read MoreGo Green for Money, not Image
I don’t do well with the whole politically correct thing. In the one-day training classes we even talk about <gasp> multi-point grounding. And we talk about the reasons to use PROFIenergy, including AGW (Anthropomorphic Global Warning*). I guess I’m a bit of a skeptic, but it doesn’t matter – it’s still a reason to use…
Read MorePTO General Assembly Meeting Coming Up
After last year’s web meeting, we’re back to normal in 2010 with an in-person meeting. Since we couldn’t celebrate our 15th anniversary with all our members last year, we decided to celebrate our Sweet Sixteen this year. So, PTO members, click over to the General Assembly Meeting 2010 page for details and a link to…
Read MoreIO-Link, a natural complement to PROFINET
I thought I would be reporting this week from Hanover Fair, but… well, the transportation to Europe was disrupted. It’s not the first time my travel has been disrupted; in fact, not even the worst disruption. At least I’m stuck at home instead of halfway to somewhere like I was on 9/11/2001. So, I’ll get…
Read MoreWhat is a Node?
One of the questions that came up in the market share discussion over at Gary Mintchell’s Feed Forward blog (Ethernet in Manufacturing and Automation) centered on the definition of a node. Thanks to a telephone conversation with the author of the study that sparked it all, John Morse of IMS Research, I can answer some…
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