Long, Long Ago in the Land of Cleve, Part 2

Continuing the report from the Cleveland PROFINET one-day training class… That interesting comment that deserves a longer response: “Was not any discussion of economics – PROFINET vs. competitors.  Not sure how PROFINET is funded.  How end users pay.  Software cost and licensing.  How comparisons of cost vary per vendor.” I always focus on the technology…

Read More

Long, Long Ago in the Land of Cleve

As I was flying back from the Cleveland PROFINET one-day training class I had some time to compose a few thoughts about the class and the memories it conjured up from my own Cleveland area work history. There were a few developers of automation devices in the class.  The class provided an overview, but we try to…

Read More

PROFINET 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 More

Certification

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 More

All 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 More

Go 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 More

What 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…

Read More

Topology: Chicken feet or palm trees?

 OR    I love some of the terminology that Ian Verhappen uses in “One Network Topology Is Not a Silver Bullet” at ControlDesign.com.  But I have to correct some Industrial Ethernet misconceptions. Ian is right when he notes that the default Ethernet topology is the star… but that is only right in the office.  For PROFINET…

Read More

PROFINET Uses Standard Ethernet!

Because Atlanta was our first PROFINET one-day training class of 2010, I sent out a short follow-up survey.  One of the interesting comments from that survey: “I think it is important for device manufacturers to know when they can use a generic Ethernet MAC ASIC (or FPGA) and when they cannot. Don’t hide this. It…

Read More