Posts Tagged ‘profinet’
Five Criteria for Choosing an Industrial Ethernet
As Manny walked the exhibition floor at ISA he encountered device vendors who needed an Industrial Ethernet. PROFINET would have fit the bill for them, but some were leaning toward something else and some had already chosen something else. One of those device manufacturers encountered told Manny that Modbus/TCP was the most popular protocol. (Clearly…
Read MoreIndustrial Ethernet Market Shares
I was asked at a recent PROFINET one-day training class why we didn’t compare PROFINET to SERCOS III. I answered lamely that we just didn’t encounter it and besides it was a motion control-only bus while PROFINET is a very comprehensive bus of which motion control is only one part. Today I stumbled upon an…
Read MoreIndustrial Ethernet in Motion Control
Today I viewed the Automation World webcast “Deterministic Ethernet for Distributed Motion Control” (sponsored by National Instruments). It’s now available for viewing. It covers EtherCAT, Ethernet/IP, and PROFINET for motion control. Irene Bearly of NI handled the PROFINET portion very well. (She learned at one of our free training classes – you should attend one.) …
Read MorePROFINET PROFIdrive
I’m in Cincinnati for a PROFINET one-day training class tomorrow after last week in Toronto and the week before in Milwaukee with a stopover in Cleveland. I have some reports from all these places coming up, but first… Having arrived in town early, I had a chance to visit PTO member Jacobs Automation. I got…
Read MorePROFIBUS and PROFINET Ubiquity
In reviewing this past week, I see that a number of PROFIBUS application stories have appeared along with some nifty PROFINET new product announcements. The PROFIBUS application stories: Topaz completes RAK Cement installation Process Dynamics and Siemens SIMATIC PCS 7 – the automatic choice for Parmalat Accuweigh supplies coated platform scales to Gold Coast desal…
Read MoreBoston: “Tell me more about CBA”
One of the follow up questions on the Boston PROFINET one-day training class feedback forms indicated that we should say more about Component Based Automation (CBA). For those who didn’t hear enough about CBA in Boston, you can find more information in Section 15 of “PROFINET Technology and Application.” You can find it on the…
Read MoreYou can take an engineer on vacation, but…
You can take an engineer on vacation, but… he’s still an engineer. Sandwiched around the Boston PROFINET one-day training class, I took some vacation time in New York City, Boston, and northern Arizona. In NYC, even an engineer will first see the symbolism of freedom… …then be disappointed that the museum gift shop does not…
Read MoreFrom Analog Computers to Davenport and Boston
You can still do things the old way. My second computer was an analog computer (the first was a Geniac): [From the favorite catalog of my youth, the Edmund Scientific catalog. “[T]he Edmund catalog was virtually a Whole Earth Catalog for items related to scientific fields,” according to Wikipedia.] Those analog computer principles still apply…
Read MoreGrowth of PROFINET and the PI Organization
A report from the 21st PI international meeting in Krakow, Poland: PI Chairman, Joerg Freitag reported that PROFIBUS growth may be flat this year, an anomaly due to the economy. But despite the economy, PROFINET continues to grow. Speaking of growth, there are currently 25 Regional PI Associations (RPAs) with India in planning as #26…
Read MoreIs PROFINET routable? (Report from Vancouver)
The question came up at the PROFINET one-day training class in Vancouver: “Is PROFINET routable?” In other words, can PROFINET messages be sent through a router? First, a little background. In an Ethernet network, several types of device can be used: hubs, switches, and routers. Each works at a different layer of the ISO/OSI reference…
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