Slightly Sensible - B&B Insider

Electronic Design magazine article

Just wanted to share an article from Electronic Design magazine about B&B Electronics' Vlinx serial-to-Ethernet converter.

Pumpkins, Combines and Connectivity at B&B

It's here - the definitive icon of fall has arrived.

Pumpkins are picked, leaves turned to golden hues and giant combines lumber through the Illinois cornfields. But that indeed is subtle evidence in comparison to the watershed event of the season.

That's right, dear reader, you know it is fall because the autumn edition of the B&B Electronics catalog has just arrived in your mail slot. 136 vibrant pages of data connectivity wonders unleashing the crisp exhilaration of the fall season.

So finish your pumpkin carving and wash that pumpkin seed slime off your fingers while I take you on a unique tour. Not some droning, guided bus tour but a journey of ideas and solutions.

Time is short, let's dive in.

The single most ubiquitous language in the industrial world, Modbus, is an elegantly simple and open protocol. Over its 30 year history it's been implemented on RS-232, RS-485 and Ethernet by thousands of manufacturers. That enormous success predicts that you will run into quirky Modbus connectivity issues. Mark did when he got called out to an oil rig that had two RS-232 transducers (both unfortunately hardcoded with an address of 1) that needed to be connected to a PLC via Modbus TCP. A quick call to B&B's support team guided Mark to page 12. When you've got a Modbus conundrum, the Vlinx MESR family of Modbus gateways is the solution and now both of Mark's transducers are connected into his Modbus/TCP control system with no conflicts.

A few weeks back I got a voice mail from plant engineer David, "Mike, I've got a problem" (my favorite kind of voice mail). David's plant had a work cell with productivity problems due to high setup times. Previously masked by high production volumes, now that the plant is turning over products every few days it had constrained the entire manufacturing operation with its long setup cycle. David was tasked with automating the programming process which would allow both operators to focus on retooling instead of futzing with the two aging PLC's. Simple enough, each controller had a serial port (one RS-232, the other RS-485). But the crux of the problem was that the work cell was out of reach of the plant's Ethernet and extensive wiring work wasn't in the budget. David's remedy was on pages 18 and 82. A two port Wi-Fi serial server and an industrial-grade outdoor access point provided the connectivity needed for remote programming and monitoring of the PLC's, eliminating thousands of dollars of wiring costs.

John is a crack SI in New England. He was adding a SCADA system to several wells in a municipality that previously had nothing but local control (and a lean budget). While there were bundles of wires going between the pump house and the control panel, there was no Cat5 cable in this 1980's installation. John was able to leave the trencher back at the shop using the Ethernet Extenders on page 32. Using a pair of extenders and an extra pair of wires in the cable bundle he was able to get full Ethernet connectivity into the pump house.

Jesse called me late in August. Jesse's company had installed three electronic traffic-information signs in Texas and had seven more installations to go. But things weren't going well. In only six weeks they had lost communications to the signs twice due to lightning storms and the contract was in jeopardy. After outage #2 they wisely brought in Jesse to diagnose the problem. He called me to review the two grounding practices he found; the design as intended, and how it was actually wired. And he also called to tell me that he was less than pleased to find that it was not a B&B Electronics RS-485 converter that had been installed. Not only was the converter fried, but it didn't even provide proper connections for grounding. Jesse's solution was on page 49, a triple isolated RS-485 converter that not only provided the isolation badly needed to survive a Texas lightning season, but also had the proper connectors and terminals to eliminate the bad wiring practices he found in the field (B&B is the serial market leader for good reason!).

Matt was another systems integrator with a challenge. He'd been tasked with adding SCADA to 14 water towers in an isolated community. Now, anyone could solve this problem with some brute force and a lot of installation labor. But that's not how you win business or turn a profit - something everyone is well in-tune with this year. Matt found his solution on page 74, where he selected a Zlinx wireless I/O module to beam the information from his level and flow transducers down to the control panel, where it flowed easily into his software thanks to Zlinx native Modbus protocol.

I've run out of time faster than I ran out of pages, so I'll leave it to the powers of your own imagination to conjure the unique connectivity solutions available in the remainder of your catalog.

Don't have your own copy? Click over to the web site and request one before they run out, that would lead to a dull fall season to be sure!

Happy Connections,

Mike Fahrion
e-support@bb-elec.com
815-433-5100

WiFi Ethernet Serial Servers on the High Seas

A global seabed mapping contractor provides ocean engineering, surveying, project risk and construction support services for oil and gas field development. Depending on project needs, various configurations of data collection and processing equipment must be installed on vessels - in this case, for surface and underwater positioning. This typically requires the installation of hundreds of feet of cabling to collect and transfer data aboard the ship. Vlinx^TM WiFi Ethernet serial servers, from B&B Electronics Manufacturing Company, Inc., are a "seaworthy" alternative to the cost and time required to string cable through the often tight quarters of ocean-going vessels.

Read the press release.

More Backhoes and Less Backlog with Zlinx® Wireless Devices

A manufacturer of world renowned "green" agricultural, consumer and construction equipment has implemented B&B Electronics' Zlinx wireless products. The company's backhoe assembly line consists of Automated Guide Vehicles (AGVs) that tug backhoe units between assembly stations. Using wired serial communications, internal intelligence guides mobile AGVs along a magnetic path in the floor. Since there was no communication from the AGVs back to the PLC controlling assembly processes, an approaching AGV could run into another AGV still at a station. Quality control processes and build times were suffering and manufacturing times were extended. With the installation of B&B Electronics' Zlinx wireless products, featuring Zlinx Manager Software, AGVs are now wirelessly managed through the PLC and processes are maintained by a single, remote group. Quality control improved and manufacturing lead times were reduced.

Read the press release.

Chicken Little - Banned at B&B Electronics

I'm a glass is half-full sorta guy, an optimistic skeptic if you will.

Sure I'm a bit cynical about "irrationally exuberant" claims (late-night TV infomercials don't sway me), I also write off Chicken Little squawking about calamitous prophecies of the future.

So if you're looking for a shoulder to cry on about some ominous prediction, I'm not your guy. Honeybee extinction, global warming, ice ages, the banana apocalypse. I file them all into my mental Chicken Little folder. I'm not saying they're right or wrong, just that you're not gonna work me into a tizzy about them.

In fact, the harder you ring the doomsday bell, the faster you'll lose me.

Last year, a reader named Gary animatedly enlightened me on the consequences of irrational borrowing and exuberance combined with lax credit oversight. His position was passionate and educated, perhaps bordering on a tizzy. Gary was hugely frustrated that he hadn't inspired me to leap out my ground floor window (and into the adjacent cornfield).

Hey, if you tell me an acorn is gonna whack me in the noggin, I'm not going to run around screaming. I'll pull on my favorite helmet (a Shoei) and go about my business.

Gary was right. Pieces of the sky did fall. Some of those pieces deserved to fall, and some hapless stargazers got whacked in the process. But strong companies with strong products survived and are in the process of emerging stronger and better than ever.

Here in the hallowed halls of B&B Electronics, I've learned more than ever about our business. Hey, when someone comes and erases 20% of your market, you can learn a lot if you're willing to listen.

I'm a product guy, so one thing I've been particularly fascinated by is a set of products that have been defying economic gravity for the last twelve months. Products that keep climbing up and up with seemingly no regard for economic headlines.

What are some of the key B&B recession-busters? Why are they doing well? And most importantly, what might they be able to do for you?

Ilinx - seems there is no end to the demand for an absolutely rock solid serial converter. If you've ever had a serial communications link take down your system as a result of surges, lightning or ground loops you understand why Ilinx is hot. Triple isolation, surge suppression, -40 to 85°C. These serial and fiber converters survive the worst of the worst.

Elinx Ethernet Extenders - Ever run into the 100 meter limitation of Ethernet? How did you solve it? Fiber? WiFi? Both solid and traditional solutions, but pulling new fiber isn't always cheap, and WiFi isn't always easy. If you're the sort that would like to have your cake and eat it too, bookmark this Ethernet extender. You can run Ethernet over 1 mile on most any pair of copper wires - an extra pair of conductors in an old phone line or an extra pair in your I/O bundle. A pair of Ethernet Extenders will bridge Ethernet into that remote location - no hassles

USB Mini's - If you connect your laptop to instruments or devices in the field to grab data or do programming, these mini USB to 232 and 485 converters are handy little devices. 9 pin D-subs, terminal blocks, RS-232, 2-wire and 4-wire versions.

Vlinx Modbus Gateway - Modbus is the most prolific industrial communications protocol on the planet. Simple and public, it's a great fit for at least 80% of every automation application out there and is one of the few protocols available on virtually any manufacturers equipment. Sometimes it's serial based (Modbus RTU, over RS-232 or RS-485) and sometimes it's Ethernet (Modbus/TCP). What to do when you want to mix and match several, or dozens, or hundreds of Modbus nodes from many suppliers? The MESR Modbus gateway will solve virtually any Modbus conflict. Lots of software elbow grease went into this one to create what I believe is the best Modbus problem-solving product available.

Vlinx Mini Ethernet to RS-232 Converter - a bit unfair since this little bugger was just hatched a couple months ago, but it sure took off like a banshee last month when I last wrote you and told you about its small size and low (too low?) price.

What are your recession busters? Have you engineered something clever that's helped save your companies bacon this year? I'd love to hear about it.

B&B Electronics Inks Partnership with N-TRON

B&B Electronics Manufacturing Co. Inc announces initiatives to broaden its depth and distribution of rugged network products and solutions by signing a partnership and distribution agreement with N-TRON Corporation, a leading developer, manufacturer, and marketer of Ethernet networking equipment for industrial applications.

Read the press release.

B&B Electronics Joins Forces with Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories

B&B Electronics Manufacturing Company, Inc. announced today that they have joined forces with Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) to bring SEL's ultra-hardened communication devices to end users in the industrial market place.

Read the entire press release.

My Summer Vacation

School supplies have been purchased. New clothes, new shoes, boxes of unbroken Crayola's and fresh bottles of Elmers glue without crusted over caps. Classroom assignments received and the frenzied phone calls to see who got Mrs. Bretag and Ms. Walker are, thankfully, complete.

As always, I'm plagued with mixed feelings when we hit the end of the summer vacation and the kids go back to school. Fleets of lumbering yellow busses forecast the end of those summer camping trips and ball games - a stark reminder that we're marching slowly towards another winter season.

Do you remember those "what I did on my summer vacation" assignments? Sure it's been a few years, I'm always mindful to have plenty of good stuff to write down. Hopefully you have good stories to tell as well.

Cooking breakfasts in a cast iron skillet over the fire. Solitary morning runs on one of the best beaches on the continent. Filtering tea-colored drinking water from deep and cold northern lakes. Sticky-fingered kids roasting marshmallows over the campfire. Portaging a canoe through hundreds of rods* of secluded trails leading to that next pristine waterway. Ball games, lots and lots of kids ball games.

And like you, my summer was disturbed by the occasional work day. The results were that quite a few things actually got done, including some exciting new products that have hit the shelves in time for your own back-to-the-grindstone projects.

Here's a new version of what was already a best seller. A mini Ethernet serial server. "Serial server" is such a stuffy name - it's really nothing more than an RS-232 to Ethernet converter. Fits right in your pocket, yet wields the power to put any serial device on your LAN. Scales, scanners, displays - you name it. If it has a serial port on it, it's now easier (and cheaper) than ever to connect that equipment to your network.

http://www.bb-elec.com/product_family.asp?FamilyId=240&s=20090281

And what if your LAN happens to be wireless? What if you'd like to take your favorite load cell with you for a vanilla latte at Starbucks? We've got an excellent new family of WiFi serial servers that will get your serial devices up and talking over your wireless LAN. This is great for mobile equipment or applications where you're forever reconfiguring your manufacturing space.

http://www.bb-elec.com/product_multi_family.asp?MultiFamilyId=99&s=20090281

Not a bad summer's work! And there were other projects too. One biggie was welcoming N-TRON as new supplier to the B&B family. N-TRON adds the most rugged Ethernet switches you'll find to the B&B mix. These aren't just industrial grade. We're talking 1964 Tonka truck tough. EMC specs strong enough to withstand demanding electrical substations. Shock and vibration ratings so high you can strap them right to your meanest, nastiest machine - even if it's a locomotive. Hazardous location rated. And (this is the part I like the best), the secret sauce in an N-TRON switch is that it's the only Ethernet switch available that can truly plug and play on an Ethernet/IP network. Use anything else and you're throwing away serious time as you decipher how to configure IGMP snooping, VLAN's and QoS to support your Ethernet/IP application.

http://bb-elec.com/productsubcat.asp?MainCategoryId=144&s=20090281

Do you remember the sneak preview I gave you to our new wireless range estimator tool a couple months back? I got a lot of great feedback and the bacon-saving success stories have been building. Don't forgot to check it out at

http://www.bb-elec.com/wirelessrangeestimator/?s=20090281

Yet another school bus lumbering down the street signals a wrap on my summer. What did you do on your summer vacation?

*A rod is a centuries old unit of length apparently only recognized or used by recreational canoeists and English literature majors enamored with Thoreau. Canoeists like the measure as its 16.5 feet is similar to the length of a canoe. So, 320 rods per mile - a long hike with an upside-down canoe on your shoulders.

Rant - Cash for What???

I try hard not to do this very often - I really do. I know all too well that things are often far more complex and multifaceted than meets the eye of the casual armchair quarterback.

(If you're looking for enlightening info on industrial connectivity, please stop reading now). 

I just can't get this one off my brain. For some reason this little example, more than most any other, has proven to me that our government is managed by incompetent goobers.

I'd like my money back, please.

 Am I off base here? Read on and let me know.

I get that powers that be have decided on a strategy of spending our way out of the recession. Counter-intuitive but I don't necessarily disagree in principle. But I thought the principle was to borrow taxpayer money to inject into the economy in programs that stimulate jobs and such.

It's Cash for Clunkers that's gotten me a bit riled. I get the idea. We take One Billion dollars and use it to try to encourage taxpayers to get their smelly old cars off the road and tip them into getting back to the dealer showrooms to buy new cars. Some of those new cars are even manufactured in the US, so some of that One Billion dollars could help keep our plants humming.

Now, if you or I was managing this program, we probably would have taken a piece of paper, maybe even a napkin since this is a fairly simple assignment, and put some deep thought into how we could use One Billion dollars to move as many cars as possible. In fact, that's the first thing I'd write on my napkin. Objective: Maximize new car sales. Budget: $1,000,000,000. Completion Date: November 2009

Now, as an engineer, I like to test the boundaries. So on the left side of my napkin I would consider giving the full one Billion to one individual to reward the lucky sap for buying a new car. On the right side of my napkin I'd consider giving one Dollar to a billion individuals to reward them for buying a billion cars.

Now that I have my boundaries established, the correct answer to the question is clearly somewhere in the middle. I happen to have the luxury of spending some time on the marketing side of the world so I know that as a matter of fact, there is a correct answer to that question. It's not a guess. It's not arrived at in committee. Any direct-marketing consultant, for a few tens of thousands of dollars, would do a nice survey and build a model that pinpoints the right dollar amount to incent the maximum number of buyers to hit our objective given our budget. And they'd do it with a margin of error of perhaps 5%.

That's what *I* would have done. I'd like to think that's what any competent, able-minded person would have done with this relatively simple assignment.

So what really happened? Well, I can't find any info on how the $3500 and $4500 incentive amounts were reached, but the result was that the one Billion dollar budget was exhausted in just one week after selling only about one hundred thousand cars.

If we go back to the notes at the top of my napkin, we realize this has been a complete disaster and the incentive number was clearly waaaay too high, maybe by a factor of 2, 3 or 4.

What to do now? In the real world, we'd fire those accountable for this program, apologize to our shareholders and demonstrate our capability to not repeat such enormous mistakes.

But, in the world of politics, we announce the program was a raving success because we gave away every penny faster than we ever could have believed, and ask for another two Billion dollars!

Ugh.

Please tell me I'm missing something. Something big.

-Mike

Subtle Apple Invasion?

B&B Engineer Bill came in the office last week, his laptop bag slung over his shoulder. As he unholstered his machine you could feel the disturbance in the Microsoft aura when a large apple illuminated the lid of his shiny new laptop.  What distress led to this invasion of a traditional Microsoft stomping grounds?  

Turns out it was Vista.

Now, I'm pecking this out now at home on a Vista machine and it's just fine. But it just doesn't play well with all of the dev tools and biz software back at the office. Maybe that's not Vista's fault.  But when Mr. Bill tried to order his new laptop with XP, they told him no. Told him he had no choice but to take Vista, or to pay a substantial fee to "downgrade" to XP.

Mr. Bill decided he did have a choice.

The moral? Customers always have a choice. You have a choice on where to buy your connectivity products, and your customers have a choice too. In today's climate, let's be sure we're all making smart choices from one end of the spectrum to the other. You must make smart choices in picking your suppliers, and they must make smart choices in choosing their suppliers. Today's economy is punishing bad choices like never before. Those that have made enough bad choices are simply going away.

For today I still have my Blackberry and my Dell...but it makes me wonder how long it will be before I make another choice.

-Mike