Use of Hard Wiring Is Down
loading… The use of hard wiring is down according to Control Design’s recent survey of their readers, primarily machine builders it seems. Video: Market Intelligence Report: Sensors & Vision Part 1. From 2008 to 2010 the respondents saying they used hard wiring went from 78% to 57%. This is certainly a step in the right…
Sharing PROFINET Data
loading… One of the clever (if esoteric) features of PROFINET is the Tool Calling Interface (TCI). Challenge: you are using PROFINET, but you also have a separate software package to configure your drive functions. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could share data between PROFINET and the drive configuration tool? With TCI you can. During…
SPS/IPC/Drives Recap
loading… 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…
Get on the Bus
loading… “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…
SPS Show Report 2010, Around the Show
loading… 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…
SPS Show Report 2010, PROFIBUS and PROFINET News
loading… 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…
SPS Show Report 2010, Technologies in the PI Booth
loading… 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…
SPS Show Report 2010, Welcome to the PI Booth
loading… 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…
One-day Training Class Retrospective
loading… Two countries, twenty cities, and thousands educated – those were our one-day training class statistics for 2010. (Not to mention thousands of air miles for Ron, Manny, Hunter, Torsten, and me.) If you missed us in 2010, we hope to see you in 2011. We have not picked dates yet, but we are tentatively…
iPar Server
loading… 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…