Regularly I attended free one day seminars on Profibus & Profinet put on by the PI Organization. They have two different classes that they offer in cities all over the US and Canada. There are usually about 50-100 attendees and it is a great opportunity to network with local engineers from and around the area in a wide variety of industries.
In the seminars they cover these topics in general:
- The history and breadth of the PI Organization
- Different ways to build I/O architectures and how to integrate them
- Why networks are important and how to select a network
And they cover in detail (using vendor products and Siemens PLCs):
- How to design a network
- Configuration of a network using the PLC
- Installation considerations, cabling & hardware
- Commissioning a system
- Long term maintenance and troubleshooting
- Plantwide Energy Conservation
During breaks, multiple vendors of Profibus & ProfiNet related products were available to discuss applications and projects with the attendees and provide valuable resources for industrial network design.
We (Balluff) are a sponsoring member of the seminars and I was attending to discuss IO-Link, Profinet and Profibus industrial network applications with potential and current customers.
If you are unfamiliar with Profibus, ProfiNet or IO-Link I recommend you attend one of these seminars to learn about how it can help your machine design.
I updated the text in this entry on 3/8/2011.
