Magicbus?

jraef said:
......for those of you who were still pooping in your pants at that time...... Along came Modbus, Modbus Plus, then FieldBus, Profibus, Sercos, Unibus, Thisbus, Thatbus, Kissmybus, Ethernet, DeviceNet, ProfiNet HairNet SuperdooperNet, BasketballNet, WhatNet...
Click to expand...

LOL....LOL....LOL....OOPS! Just pooped in my pants laughing so much!!

jraef ... u gotta quit controls engineering and get on the Comedy circuit!!
 
How about a self-configuring network? Each module has enough brains to recognize the others and set themselves up? A single set of comm parameters so fast it covers all but the most esoteric of applications? Fiber based comms for noise immunity? With an integrated power bus?

We could offer all of this as a series of modules, then for versatility, add a "coupler" module that connects this high-speed fiber network to a standard (cough, cough) network, like Profibus or Devicenet.

Then, let's set up our coupler module so it presents our entire fiber network to the host network as though it were one single IO node on the host network!

Oh, wait... I already use Beckhoff remote IO :)

Disclaimer - I don't work for Beckhoff, I just think they're really clever.
 
TimothyMoulder said:
How about a self-configuring network? Each module has enough brains to recognize the others and set themselves up? A single set of comm parameters so fast it covers all but the most esoteric of applications?
Click to expand...

That's Interbus!

Tried it once, never again.

I still get edgy if I see some green cable........
 
Originally Posted by Steve_Bailey
Why limit ourseves to a bus architecture and protocol? How about a control engine that executes a single line of code:

"All outputs do what they're supposed to do when they're supposed to do it"
Click to expand...

That is what I had in mind all along. Now you are getting it!

This would be good for our job security.
 
TimothyMoulder said:
I've never used Interbus, but I've seen it in the catalogs. Out of curiosity, what went south on you?

TM
Click to expand...

Interbus has every good feature that anyone ever dreamed up that you could want for a bus system. Automatic detection of slaves, auto configuration and automatic addressing of IO.

Unfortunately, it turned out like a kiddies first attempt at cooking, i.e. grab all your favorite ingredients, mix them up and taste... yuck!

What we ended up with was a bus that would lock out on any fault and require resetting.
If you reset it, it would re-configure itself. This could be OK, however if one of the nodes was missing or refusing to communicate, it would reconfigure as if those nodes were not supposed to be there.
If you found that you needed to upgrade your equipment, and you wanted to stick your new IO anywhere other than the end of the bus, you will find that the auto configuration will shuffle and re-arrange the hardware IO addresses. You could either go through the code and change all the addresses, or re-configure the IO by hand. But if you re-configure by hand, this will be lost if you press reset again.
These problems can be overcome by using a configuration tool similar to a Profibus setup. This tool costs extra, and when we wanted it, no one would sell it to us (this turned out to be a mis understanding between our supplier of PLC components and the supplier of the configuration software, both thought that the other had exclusive rights in our market).

After introduction to Profibus, I never looked back.
I no longer care what version they are up to, or how much better the catalog says it is. Profibus is good enough for all my needs so far, and that is what I will stick with.
I also like Ethernet, Modbus, Modbus+, ASi and SafetybusP.
I have used the cut down version of interbus that Modicon supplies with its momentums with great success.
I have nothing against Devicenet, only I have never had the opportunity to use it.
I refuse to use Interbus again.
 
Back
Top Bottom