PROFIBUS PA – a Proven Technology
loading… What follows is an excerpt from the recently released White Paper entitled 6 Reasons to Give PROFIBUS PA Another Look. Fieldbus systems have a proven track record that goes back to the early 1990’s, and PROFIBUS has been at the forefront. These systems are deployed throughout the industrial automation landscape in the automotive, machinery…
PROFINET: 6 Little Known Facts and Why They Matter
loading… There are some well-known facts about PROFINET. Most people know them: PROFINET is suitable in the three major application spaces: factory, process, and motion control. PROFINET is fast. PROFINET is complete. Part of what makes PROFINET complete is “the little known things.” Here are six features (“little things”) of PROFINET that you probably were…
Wireless PROFINET Questions – Asked and Answered
loading… I enjoy corresponding with editors about all things PROFINET and PROFIBUS. But sometimes they don’t get to use my input. So all my stuff wound up on the editing room floor for a recent article on wireless. To save my good stuff from extinction, here are wireless questions, asked and answered. Before you begin,…
Managed Ethernet Switches as PROFINET IO
loading… You can use either a managed or an unmanaged Ethernet switch for PROFINET. Of course, if downtime is expensive for you, you will easily justify using a managed switch. (See past post.) You can use an OPC-SNMP server to read information from a managed switch and display it and alarm it in an HMI….
Managed or Unmanaged Switch for PROFINET
loading… Should I use a managed switch or an unmanaged switch with PROFINET? Yes. Yes, you should use either a managed or an unmanaged Ethernet switch with PROFINET. An unmanaged switch has no built-in intelligence except to send incoming Ethernet frames out the right port – the port that the destination device is connected to….
Final Observations about STEM
loading… I’m just returned from The Automation Conference in Chicago where STEM was a frequent topic, prompting these final observations. Why is there a skills gap? To quote an old comic strip character: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” There is a skills gap because we talk about it, but we don’t…
More STEM Anecdotes and Resources
loading… Adding to last week’s post about STEM, here are other encouraging observations on STEM education: Boy Scouts now can get a Merit Badge in CAD. This is literally an observation; from the display of merit badges at a grandson’s Eagle Scout ceremony: And another grandson chooses the engineering path: Puyallup junior delves into rocket…
STEM Anecdotes
loading… Multiple anecdotes do not equal data. So this post consists of, let’s call them “observations” instead of “anecdotes,” about STEM (short for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and the alleged lack of STEM-equipped workers in the pipeline. There are success stories in promoting STEM education to middle schoolers. In one small, remote Alaskan village,…
Five Things You Should Tell Your Boss about PROFINET
loading… What should you tell your boss about PROFINET? Here’s the list, but the five things all come back to saving money. Maybe that’s why we often see PROFINET “accidentally” spelled PROFITNET. Legacy protection: you can update a system without doing a rip-and-replace of the existing fieldbus. Just use a PROFINET proxy to seamlessly integrate…
Why use an IP-Address?
loading… Did you catch the new White Paper we posted? If not, here it is: PROFINET for network geeks (and those who want to be). Done yet? TL;DR (it’s only four pages!): The White Paper discusses the seven-layer ISO/OSI Reference Model, as well as how in the Ethernet world, these seven layers collapse down into four….