I am looking for an implementation of the profibus protocol for RS485 on Linux.

 

Niek,

Master or Slave? Profibus DP?

Regards,

Willy Smith
Numatics, Inc.

 

We have a lot of experience with Linux and Profibus as automationX relies on both at many of our installations, including some of the largest at over 5000 I/O per server/backup. We have both software and hardware products that fully support Profibus.

For more information you can goto www.mnrcan.com

Or for Europe www.automationX.com

Cheers,

Paul Jager
CEO automationX
www.mnrcan.com

 

Me too!

Regards

cww

 

ETM AG / Austria (Europe) sells an SCADA/HMI package with Profibus also available on LINUX.
(www.pvss.com)

 

Hi,

Hilsher's Profibus PC-Cards have a driver for Linux, with a nice documentation and even some test programs with a graphics interface done in GTK. All together fits in a 1.44M floppy.

Unfortunately, these cards don't came with any configuration program for Linux. Then, before to play with they, you must install the card in a
Windows machine with a configuration program in order to define the number of attached slaves in the bus, their configuration, etc... Not very practical :-(

A salesman from Applicom explains me the same story for they cards: they provide a Linux driver without _ANY_ support (he enforced a lot the idea
of NO support), and the card configuration must be done in a Windows machine (the cards have a Flash EPROM for the config).

If you want to use these cards in a Linux box, maybe a dual-boot computer can be used: Linux for production and Windows for configuration. :-/

Hope it helps.
--
Ferran

 

I wonder if they could be persuaded to release enough information to write a config program. Couldn't be earthshaking to blow some values into Flash. Wouldn't seem to be important intellectual property either.

Regards

cww

 

That card is a dual-port memory device which can be easily controlled in C (or something like that). The configuration is performed by setting jumpers excepting the downloading of GSDs for various manufacturers. But who said you must use GSDs. There's no rocket science out there.

Best Regards,

Alexander Lokotkov
Director of Software Engineering
Fastwel, Inc.

 

IIRC Hilscher provide information on their cards which allows them to be configured via the dual port ram interface or serial link. It's a fairly
straightforward process.

Tim Linnell (Eurotherm Controls)

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: HMI: Honeywell GUS graphics

We have been operating our plants through GUS for last two and half years . May be I can share some experience with you . To start with the GUS operate in NT platform for the Graphics MMI
application, wheras it's real data processing is in the LCNP of the GUS . As a result the MMI needs many extra things to be added to fit the
requirement . For example for any tag within the graphics , even the unit is to be embeded as a subpicture . The trend, the alarm summary can not
be directly pulled in the GUS window . It has to be seen in the Native window . So many times operator toggles between Native window and Gus
window . Of course I heard in some recent revision this problem is solved . I may suggest you some better ways even with the GUS , if your application
is known
Regards
Nilanjan,India

 

The flash burning is the trival part. The real work comes in creating a configuration based on parsing the "scary" GSD files. i.e. these are text files with a very over complicated format (via those happy Germans) and, as usual, not all vendors read the spec. the same.....

 

> IIRC Hilscher provide information on their cards which allows
> them to be
> configured via the dual port ram interface or serial link.

Tim, a few years ago we received the information on that only as a part of the their toolkit (which was a bit expensive). It sounds like things have changed.

Thanks,

Alexander Lokotkov
Director of Software Engineering
Fastwel, Inc.

 

Hi everybody:
Thanks for your interest in Hilscher products.
First, the Hilscher cards can be configured through the Ethernet or through the serial port. So you don't need to plug it in a Windows machine first.

The configuration software SyCon is a Windows program and we don't have any plans to port it to Linux.

We do give support for our Linux driver in the same way we support all other OP's. We support also two real time Linux versions. We see Linux more in the embedded world than in the desktop world. There are not many Laptops with Linux on the manufactory floor. We program all Linux drivers in our company and it is in our strategy to offer more products with Linux. Therefore, we are following all activities in the Linux community and participate somehow with test products and knowledge about fieldbuses.

If somebody wants to program a configuration tool for Linux, we would give support for our Dual Port RAM etc. To take a look at our current version of the configuration tool:

Please download our demo software configurator: www.hilscher.com/ftp/sycon File name: sc270100.zip
Size: 20.973.314 bytes
Password for ZIP: poiuztre

Please download our complete product catalog here: www.hilscher.com/ftp/catalog

Need more information? Just send me an email...

Nick Baur