Posts Tagged ‘profinet’
PROFINET Wins, Organization Expands, PROFIenergy Products
Lots of news from PI today: PROFIBUS and PROFINET by the numbers I hate to get too wrapped up in node counts, but here are the installed nodes through 2009: PROFIBUS 31,400,000 (5,400,000 in the process industries) PROFINET 2,100,000 PROFIsafe 850,000 Press Release: Healthy growth for PROFIBUS and PROFINET The only thing these numbers really…
Read MoreWireless or Wireless
One of my pet peeves is lumping all wireless types together and treating them as one. Wireless is not one monolithic thing. I see four types of wireless in industrial automation: 1. Backhaul (as I think ISA characterizes it). Typically this is long distance radio bringing data from an RTU perhaps at a wellhead to…
Read MorePROFINET Data Wrangler Avatar
Many of you have seen the movie Avatar. I was a little late, but I did finally see it (and in IMAX 3D). The special effects were, of course, amazing. I was not so thrilled with the theme which was something like “Corporations, bad; primitive people, good.” But that did not stop me from staying…
Read MoreMultitasking on Industrial Ethernet
Automation World has an interesting article in the February issue and online: “Ethernet Protocols’ Flexibility A Boost For Manufacturing.” It manages to mention five different Industrial Ethernet protocols but then goes on to focus on PROFINET and Ethernet/IP. This is a sensible focus since PROFINET and Ethernet/IP are the market leaders. A recent study showed…
Read MoreSo an Engineer Walks into the Science Center…
I walked into the Arizona Science Center this past weekend to see the interactive robots exhibition. I took some grandkids along so I wouldn’t be conspicuous… and ran into an old friend there that the kids didn’t know: Can you name him? (I’ll provide a clue; I blogged about him before: “Klaatu barada nikto! And salad dressing.”)…
Read MoreSPS Report 6: Walking the Show Floor
Although I spent most of my time at the SPS Show in the PI booth, I did get to visit the booths of some PTO members. I already mentioned Stahl, WAGO, Siemens, and Phoenix Contact. Here are some others: HMS was showing the PROFINET relatives in their Anybus family. These included boards for PROFINET RT…
Read MoreSPS Report 5: PROFIenergy
At the show PROFINET was ubiquitous, but I think the biggest news of the fair was PROFIenergy. First, PROFINET. Here is a ten-second pan of the PROFINET wall in the PI booth. And this is the PROFINET display at the Phoenix Contact stand: Now to PROFIenergy: PROFIenergy is an application profile for PROFINET that makes…
Read MoreSPS Report 4: PROFIsafe
I do not understand the slow acceptance of functional safety over the bus in North America. PROFIsafe has been around for more than 10 years. It covers functional safety for discrete, process, and motion control applications in the same system. It works on PROFIBUS and PROFINET. It works via wire or wireless. It accepts AS-I…
Read MorePROFINET is not a Star
PROFINET is not a star… but it can be when you want it to be – speaking of topologies, of course; in performance PROFINET is a star! I read the article “Network Behemoth” by Dan Hebert at Control Design which featured this section: Hard to Deal with Stars Dealing with stars can be difficult, whether…
Read MoreDeveloper Resources
Again in Minneapolis last week, there were a large number of automation device manufacturers. It’s clear that more manufacturers are adding PROFINET to their products. On the Course Evaluations there were a number of requests to provide additional information specific to them in our free PROFINET one-day training classes. Alas, there is little time available…
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