PROFIblog

loading… Control Engineering presented a webinar today sponsored by PTO member Woodhead: “Building the Industrial Infrastructure.”  Ed Nabrotsky’s introduction is a fact-based comparison showing the savings of using a fieldbus over using hard wiring.  Pay careful attention to the justification even though he uses DeviceNet instead of PROFIBUS in his example.  I’m sure the PROFIBUS…

loading… I finally got to see Safety the Movie on the big screen when it played at the AMC Ahwatukee 24 today.  It is subtitled Safety – the Competitive Advantage.  And the fact that safety really is a competitive advantage comes through loud and clear.  If it hasn’t played in your town yet, get your…

loading… There’s an article from Automation World, “Ethernet-based Motion Hot and Real-time,” that briefly describes the various Ethernet-based motion control protocols – emphasis on the word briefly.  For a more complete explanation of how PROFINET does motion control, download the PROFINET booklet.  PROFINET is the one technology that does all the things that need doing…

loading… PROFIBUS turns up in the darnedest places.  Over on the Health and Medicine Blog there is an article that just barely touches on PROFIBUS: “Advair GSK breathes easy with new inhaler line: robotics and ‘adaptable’ equipment help.” What attracted my attention was the fact that GlaxoSmithKline has the same line in three countries: US,…

loading… I’m treading dangerous ground again – moving from SEX to religion – at least the fervor of FDT vs. EDDL seems like religious zeal.  Or is it EDDL vs. FDT? I blogged about this last year, saying of users, “They are looking for results not technology – results not political intrigue.”  Today one of…

loading… Ok, now that I have your attention, let’s take a look at magazine articles of interest for their content of fieldbuses, Industrial Ethernet, PROFIBUS, and PROFINET. The first one, “High-tech Profibus system succeeds in the outback” does cover SEX – sodium ethyl xanthate, a lead collector used in mining.  This application story is from…

loading… Nothing like a good debate to get the adrenaline flowing now that I’m back in the office.  Nick Belardes (ProSoft) and Eric Murphy (MatrikonOPC) have a bit of a conversation flowing covering Ethernet, OPC, and Modbus.  I like to think of Modbus as a stand-in for fieldbuses in general. Seems like some folks think…

loading… PROFInews North American Edition, issue 12 (PNNA12) publishes beginning tonight.  One of the highlights is the initial schedule for our one-day training events.  We just concluded some meetings to finalize the content for 2007.  I’ll update the information on the web in a week or so. But first, the PROFIblog will go silent for…

loading… “Like death and taxes, standards are apparently an unavoidable fact of life. Few like them, but many would agree we need them.”  So begins an article in the December issue of Computer: “Standards: What Are They Good For”.  You have to be an IEEE member to access the article.  And if you’re not, why…

loading… Gary is right: “… ‘Ethernet’ … no one (possible exception would be network engineers on standards committees or in academia) uses the term for what it really means.”   And I have to add myself to the exception list – must be the engineer part of me.  Precision of nomenclature matters.  Now there’s a marketing…