Hi all,

Just reflecting about how to communicate from my proview plc with external world.
I need a deterministic communication at minimum 5ms (4 preferrable) based on ethernet medium.

I saw in the I/O guide that Proview has support for Profinet. What kind of profinet is this (Soft real time I guess ?).

Can you use this on standard NIC (it seems to be the case but just want to be sure if it worth a try for me) ?

Does anyone has tested this at my required speed ? I know it is given by Siemens to be in the 5 ms range but is that 4 feasible as I don't get too much data to exchange (about 30 words in both direction).

Any feedbacks or experience are welcome

Thanks in advance

Snarf

Hi Snarf,

We have implemented the Softing profinet controller which can exchange data with profinet devices. We haven't run it in any production system yet and yes, it works with a standard NIC.

The version we have is a kernel module that has to be built with the specific kernel you use, and only Sofing kan do the build, so you have to send the kernel to Softing and let them build the module. You also specify MAC addresses which are hardcoded in the module. So it's not very user friendly and we don't expect any extern user to use the stack. I have heard that they now have a version that runs in user space and then doesn't need to be built with the specific kernel so there be some improvment i the future.

/Claes

Hi Claes,

Thanks for reply.

As you said it's not very user friendly as it is ... Anyway it's a good start and let's wait for next improvment.

Bye

Snarf

Just to clarify,

The MAC-address is not really needed once you have configured the drive. It's the name given to the device that is used to establish communication. The MAC-address is though of course needed to be known to set the name of the device, this has though really nothing to do with Profinet.

I've tested devices with 1 ms update cycle.

-Robert

Thanks Robert for this additionnal information.

I'm glad to see you reach this communication time cycle.

To summarise, if I would want to make a test (but does softing accept external request or is it only dedicated to the proview team ?), I just have to set a device name to my NIC based on its MAC address and send to softing my kernel so that they can include their module during the build.

Concerning the proview team, is this trial only to \"give a try\" or do you plan to use this in a near future for industrial deployment ?

Snarf

Hi Snarf,

We will use the Profinet stack at a new factory in Mobile, Alabama. I'm quite sure in a rather near future it will also be used in Oxelösund.

I'm not quite sure how Softing are selling the Profinet stack. I bought a bundle of 50 licenses. My contact at Softing is Georg Suess (e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).

-Robert