Drew B, the creator of Instant Automation Man, and I attended the Upper Michigan AOTM Event last week at the Soaring Eagle Casino way up in Mount Pleasant Michigan. It’s a ways to go but your typical non-vegas casino. Every variety of frail old men and women you can imagine. Blue hairs, wheelchairs, walkers and oxygen tanks blocking the aisles. I was surprised that I didn’t see any hospital beds or oxygen tents but maybe I just didn’t hit that part of the casino.
I did two afternoon sessions on Industrial Networking and covered the gamit; ASi, Modbus, DeviceNet, EtherNet/IP, Profibus, Modbus TCP and ProfiNet IO. It went pretty well but I always forget how complicated this stuff seems to the uninitiated. For me, well I’ve been doing this for a hundred years, it’s all straightforward. I forget that most people don’t know much more about this stuff than how to hook up the cable. It takes me a while to dial back and help people get some idea about all these networks. Ace Marketer Drew will have a video and a transcript of the presentation up next week.
The newest part of the gig was a section on EtherCat. The more and more I study it the more I like it. It’s fast, reliable, physically easier to wire and easy to understand. It’s apparently growing like crazy. You can expect to hear more from me about this in the near future.
JR