by James Powell | Jun 17, 2019 | General
Being a PROFIBUS PROFINET International (PI) Competence Center (PICC) and PI Training Center (PITC) for both PROFIBUS and PROFINET means that we need to stay current on what is happening. To do this, PI has a meeting of PICC and PITC once a year, and this year it was...
by James Powell | Mar 18, 2019 | How things work
Have you ever laid up at night wondering how Ethernet/IP prioritizes their messages or even if they ever did? Well maybe I was working too hard on writing my Ethernet/IP training course, or maybe I am a bit of a geek. Probably both. At this time, I was reading a...
by James Powell | Jan 11, 2019 | Troubleshooting
What do extra terminations look like? In both PROFIBUS DP and PA, having more than two terminations on a segment will lower the signal level. This lowers the overall robustness of the network and should be avoided. In the case of PROFIBUS PA, the signal level is...
by James Powell | Nov 11, 2018 | Troubleshooting
There are many tools on the market for troubleshooting Ethernet and even ones made specifically for Industrial Ethernet. However, they vary greatly in functions and whether you use them on the network for a short time or if they are on the network all of the time. For...
by James Powell | Oct 16, 2018 | Installation
Industry, at least, has figured out that using office grade switches in industrial settings is a really bad idea. Those who decided to try office grade switches soon figure out it is not a great idea after they have replaced 2 or 3 in a year. Cabling is not that...