That Is the Question.

RS-485 Woes

Whether you work in industrial automation, process control, machine design, or any other industrial application, at some point in time you’re going to run into an RS-485 network. And troubleshooting these networks can be an absolute nightmare.

What technician, engineer, or maker doesn’t like tools? Having the right tools for the job is essential in getting things done.

Few things are more satisfying than applying just the right tool to a specific problem to easily rectify the situation. Having a shop outfitted with the right tools and a good place to work makes fixing things and resolving problems that much easier.

And It’s Going to Happen Again.

Last week the Internet experienced the largest cyber attack in history. Many popular websites went offline for the better part of a day as three waves of cyber attacks hit the DNS infrastructure company DynDNS.

But how could an attack on a single infrastructure company wreak such havoc across the entire Internet?

We’re all aware of the opportunities the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is poised to deliver:

• Using big data generated by billions of things to solve problems before they occur
• Increasing operator situational awareness on the plant floor with mobility

We've talked about some technologies, like edge computing and RESTful APIs, that reduce system architecture complexity for the Internet of Things (IoT) or Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). 

Reducing complexity is essential to making the IIoT work, especially for getting data from existing sensors, equipment, and devices that are functioning fine in the field but have no built-in IoT capabilities.

In my last blog post I talked about the TCP/IP model and why you should care about it. In a phrase: the Internet of Things (IoT). 

With all the recent attention around the IoT, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and Industry 4.0, I’m sure you’re starting to realize that networking, Internet communication, and network security are going to be important in your job as an automation professional.

Have you ever wished you could troubleshoot a networking problem faster, more accurately, and with greater efficiency? Stay tuned for the next few series of blog posts where we’ll discuss exactly how you can do that.

Have you ever wondered how data gets from one side of the Internet to the other? How an email you send from California ends up in Paris in just a couple of seconds? How your programmable automation controllers send data to your groov appliance to be displayed on your smartphone or tablet, wherever you are in the world? The magic behind all of this is called the TCP/IP model.

Opto 22 exhibited at the ATX – Automation Technology West show this week in Anaheim. The show was one of five shows held at the Anaheim convention center, all centered around a general theme of manufacturing and packaging technologies. With that many shows under one roof it was a bit overwhelming to try and absorb all of the cool new tech being showed off. I've never seen so many robots under one roof.