Industrial Communications

Industrial Communications are a critical part of today's plant and machine control systems.

Communication networks are used to reduce hard wired signals and increase data transfer between related pieces of equipment. As an example using a remote IO panel can save a plant many thousands of dollars in signal cabling back to the main PLC. This can be replaced by a single paired cable, fiber optic cable, wireless Ethernet link or radio link.

On a typical site there may be as many as ten different communication protocols operating between different devices. Many of the large control equipment manufacturers have their own custom protocols and these must be made to work together.

Pondhop Automation's engineers have extensive experience working with many Industrial Communications Protocols from many different vendors and understand them at a detailed level. In several cases custom drivers and interface units have been produced to allow non standard protocols to communicate with each other.

The list below shows some of the protocols we have experience with.

Communication Protocols
• Modbus Serial
• Modbus TCP
• Modbus Plus
• Profibus DP
• Profibus PA
• AB DF1
• AB DH485
• DeviceNet
• ControlNet
• AB Industrial Ethernet
• Automation Direct DirectNet
• Automation Direct ECOM
• Automation Direct K Sequence
• OPC (OLE for Process Control)

Communication Networks
• Ethernet Networks (Wired and Wireless)
• VHF, UHF Serial and Ethernet Radio Links
• Serial and Ethernet Fiber Optic Networks
• RS232, RS485 and RS422 Networks