Has anyone successfully talked profibus from a .NET application?
If you did, what device/card did you use to accomplish this, what was the application, and did you use any kind of preexisting or available code?
Has anyone successfully talked profibus from a .NET application?
If you did, what device/card did you use to accomplish this, what was the application, and did you use any kind of preexisting or available code?
We have used Steeplechase to connect to our profibus to our automated pick system.
We've not used Profibus, but have used DeviceNET (another CAN based protocol), Ethernet/IP and ControlNet which all have similar challenges.
We've been doing this since the late 1990's and therefore rely mainly on our own generated code using off-the-shelf hardware. The companies that have shown longevity during that period that I remember are:-
I suggest not using OPC interfaces to the hardware directly (it’s OK for communication using PC (.NET)->PLC->Profibus) as you need to ensure that the control system responds to loss of control from your .NET application. I’m assuming that you are needing a profibus Master here (not a slave), so as long as your control system is intrinsically fail safe, then loss of communication should mean the control system enters an "Idle" state and therefore most of the I/O will return to the fails safe state.
We also try to ensure that we do not put safety related code in .NET. Most of our .NET code is userinterface from a PLC, but in some places we do control the fieldbus directly but ensure hardware interlocks will prevent un-safe operation, either using safety switches/relays or a small PLC with the the task of interlocking only. And above all make the system fail-safe! Loss of comms from the .NET code should shutdown the automation to the fail-safe state.