Podcasts about iec

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2025 40:33 Transcription Available

Shawn Tierney meets up with Mark Berger of Siemens to learn how Siemens integrates SIRIUS ACT devices (push buttons, selector switches, pilot lights) with PROFINET in this episode of The Automation Podcast. For any links related to this episode, check out the “Show Notes” located below the video. Watch The Automation Podcast from The Automation Blog: Listen to The Automation Podcast from The Automation Blog: The Automation Podcast, Episode 253 Show Notes: Special thanks to Mark Berger of Siemens for coming on the show and sending us a sample! Read the transcript on The Automation Blog: (automatically generated) Shawn Tierney (Host): Thank you for tuning back in to the automation podcast. My name is Shawn Tierney from Insights. And today on the show, we have a special treat. We have Mark Berger back on from Siemens to bring us up to speed on serious act. He’s gonna tell us all about the product, and then we’re even gonna do a small demo and take a look at it working live. So with that said, let’s go ahead and jump into this episode with Mark Burger from Siemens and learn all about their push buttons on PROFINET. Mark, it’s been a while since you’ve been on the show. Thank you for coming back on and agreeing to talk about this. Mark Berger (Siemens): Oh, thank you so much. I truly appreciate you letting me be on. I appreciate your channel, and I enjoy watching it. And I’m excited to show you some of this great technology. So I’ve got, the PowerPoint up here. We’ll just do a simple PowerPoint to kinda give you an overview, and then we’ll dive into the hardware. Shawn Tierney (Host): Appreciate it. Thank you. Mark Berger (Siemens): No problem. So as we stated, the Sirius X over PROFINET, let me emphasize that, the, actuators, the push buttons, the estops, the selector switches, they are all standard, when you use these. So if you have those on the shelf, the only thing that PROFINET does is that it adds, removes the normal contact blocks and adds the PROFINET, terminal blocks on the back. So every all the actuators that we’re showing are just standard actuators for the 22 millimeter push button line. So easy to use, modern design, performance and action, and extremely rugged and flexible. The, 22 millimeter is out of the box IP 69 k, which for those who are maybe in the food and beverage, verticals would understand what that is. And that’s for direct hose down, wash down, able to handle a high pressure washing and not able to leak past the actuator into the panel. So IP 69 k is a a great place for dust and wash down and hosing and where you’re having rain and so forth, to be able to protect for a keep of any, water passing into the panel. So introduction wise, it’s, the PROFINET push buttons for us. It it is, again, the same actuators, the same, connections, and so forth, but what we’re going to exchange is the terminal blocks, for it. So on there, I stated it’s, IP 69 k is standard. You don’t need any, extra covers forward or anything to fulfill that requirement, But it’s, it’s insensitive to dust and oil and caustic solutions, you know, like citric acid where you’re hosing down some stainless steel parts and so forth. Now what we have here is, changing out the terminal blocks that have wiring. So usually on a push button, you have two wires coming in, and then you have, for illuminated, you have two wires coming in and so forth and going out. And after you have 20 or 30 push buttons or 10 or 15 push buttons, you’ve got a substantial little bit of wiring or cabling that will be passing from the door over into the main cabinet of your control cabinet. What we’re going to do with PROFINET push buttons is we’re going to eliminate all that wiring. And then in addition, eliminate the input and output cards that you will need for your PLC and take it down to a pro, Ethernet cable, an r j r j 45 cable, and then down to a 24 volts. And that’s all that will pass from the cabinet onto the door where you’re mounting your push buttons. So, huge, safe and cost of wires. We’re reducing all the wire outlay. And, you know, back in the day when I build panels, it was an art how you got all the wires all nice and pretty and got them laid out and wire tied them down and so forth and just made the a piece of art on the backside. And then, it it was all done. You got it all wired. And then, of course, there was somebody that said, hey. We forgot to add another selector switch. So you had to go back and cut all that stuff and redo the whole layout and so forth. So with PROFINET, it’s extremely flexible and easily, to adapt to if you need something, more because you’re not taking all that wiring back to the panel, passing it across the hinge of the door and so forth. It is also with a safety PLC. You do have PROFIsafe, so we can do estops on the door as you can see here in the picture, but then we can do non safe applications also. So today, we’ll be just doing some non safe applications. And then the communications again is PROFINET. But then also just to touch real quick, we do have it on IO Link and on Aussie with our push buttons. So what is SiriusACT with PROFINET? There we go. So what you have is the first, block or interface module that you put on the back of your push button, that’s where the, Ethernet is plugged into and your 24 volts is plugged into. And then after that, subsequently, then the push buttons that you have is that you have what we call a terminal module. And in between the, the interface module to a terminal module or from terminal module to terminal module, you can go up to one meter of cabling, and it’s a ribbon cable. And we’ll show that here shortly. And then if you have up to we can do up to 20 push buttons, terminal modules, with a total of 21 push buttons. And then so from the first interface module all the way to the last push button, you can go up to 10 meters. And then it gives, again, 24 volt power supply for it. And we have, again, as I stated, as nonsafe, talking just PROFINET, and then the safety version, talking PROFISAFE on PROFINET. So serious act, we can go up on the the safety up to seal three and performance level e as an echo. We have, again, the the standard interface module without safety. You have the PLC, the interface module, and then the subsequent terminal modules for it. And then the cabling that goes from the interface module to out to the terminal modules is a simple ribbon cable that comes into the back of the terminal modules. The only tool that you need is simply it’s just a screwdriver, and, you, push it into the terminal module, push down. It uses, vampire connections, insulation displacement, vampire connections, and you push it down in. There’s no stripping of the wires. There’s no mix up. The indicator you can see on the wires here in a minute will show you that there’s a little red line that shows you, which way it, enters into the terminal, and then that’s it. It’s very straightforward. It’s, very simple with tools. And, as I stated, it’s, just like a normal push button that you’d put on, but then we’re gonna add, remove the contact block and add the terminal module or the interface module in the place of the contact block. Just to emphasize again, we can do PROFISAFE on, with a safety PLC and a safety controller, and we can give you all the safety, requirements for the either the ISO or the IEC specifications for safety out there in the field. Here’s some of the part numbers. First one, of course, is the interface module, and that has the ability to do PROFIsafe. It has also, additionally, four digital inputs, one digital output, and then one analog input. And we’ll talk about that a little bit more just in a few minutes. And then the non safe version, 24 volts. You have a, two versions of this one, one with just with just a standard, 24 volts input, but then there’s an additional one that has the four digital in, one digital out, and one analog in. So there’s two different part numbers. One where you don’t need the additional, digital inputs and outputs and analog, and then the and then the part number with the the additional inputs and outputs. But the safety one comes there’s no other version, just the one. Then you have what we call the terminal modules, and there’s three versions. One terminal module is just the command module only. It’s mounted with two mechanical signaling blocks to signal. So you have two contact blocks built in. Then you have one that’s a terminal module with the command, the terminal blocks, and then also an integrated LED. And then you can put what color you want the LED to be, and you can see there the the part number changed for red, blue, amber, so on. And then you have a just an LED module to where it’s no contactors. It’s just LED. And, I think with our demo we’re gonna show today, we’re just gonna show the contact block and LED module and only the LED module today. There’s some other, accessories with the safety. There’s a memory module to where that you, is all the configurations are put into the memory module, and something happens to that interface module. Everything’s put in there, the IP address, the configuration, and everything. If something gets broke and so forth or you have to replace it, you pull the memory module out, put the new terminal or interface module in, plug in the memory module, cycle the power, and it’s up and running. All the configurations, the IP address, everything’s already there. And then on the interface module, it does not come with an LED, so you’re required to buy this this, LED right here if you need it for it, and that’s what you use for the interface module. And then, of course, the ribbon cable that goes between the interface module to the terminal block or terminal module and terminal module and so forth come in five meter length and 10 meter length. K. So what’s it provide for you? Well, the benefits are, I’ll I’ll be very blunt. If it’s just one or two buttons on a panel, it won’t be that cost effective. Yes. We’re reducing the IO, the IO inputs and outputs, but for the savings, it’s not the best. Now when you get up to about three or four push buttons, then that cost saving is, very realized. Now when you go up to 20 push buttons, yes, you’re saving a lot of money, especially in the IO cards that you’re not gonna be required to have. And then, of course, all the wiring and the labor, getting it all wired up and doing all the loop checks to make sure that when you push this button, it’s wired into the right terminal block on the IO card, so on and so forth. So about, the break is about two to three push buttons to where it will become very cost effective for you to use it. But like I said yesterday, without PROFINET push buttons, it was all the wiring you brought across and putting them into all your IO cards and so forth. And now with PROFINET push buttons, all that goes away, and all you’re bringing across is an Ethernet cable and 24 volts positive and 24 volts negative across that hinge into the door. And that’s it. K. And then emphasizing again, we can do PROFIsafe and those, push buttons and estops. The estop can be part of your safety circuit and give you the, safety levels that you’re required from either sill and or performance level safeties depending on the specification, IEC, or ISO that you’re following within your plant. K? And then hardware configuration. Now this is where we step into reduction of engineering and helping you guys get going, quicker and making sure engineering is done properly. You know, back in the day, we’d wire up all the wires, coming from the push buttons, you know, a selector switch, a start button, stop button, indicator lights, and so forth. And and all those wires sometimes just, you know, the what we’re working with, all the wires look the same. You’ve put labels on them. You may have labeled it wrong, and you wired into an input card or an output card. So there’s some time where you’re over there doing some loop checks where you’re trying to say, yes. That’s coming into input byte dot bit, and that should be the selector switch. Well, with the PROFINET push buttons, we’re able to not have to worry about that, and we’re gonna demonstrate that just here in a minute. But you also have a full lineup of the push buttons coming into portal so that you can see the lineup and verify that it is the parts that you want. In TI portal, you can see that, of course, the first, button is the interface module, and then sequentially is the terminal modules that have either just contactors, LED and contactors, or just LEDs. And we’ll we’ll show that just here momentarily. But it’s all integrated into TIA portal. It has a visual representation of all the push buttons, and it’s simple and fast, to, configure. We’ll show you that here in just a moment. And there’s no addressing, for it. So some of the stuff that you have out there, you have addressing, making sure what the address is right, and so on. This is a standardized data management, and it’s extremely time saving and engineering saving for, the user. Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, let me ask you a question about that. If the snow addressing, do the items show up, in the order that they’re wired? In other words, you know, you’re daisy chasing the you’re you’re going cable to cable from device to device. Is that the order that they show up? Mark Berger (Siemens): That’s exactly right. Shawn Tierney (Host): Okay. Mark Berger (Siemens): So if you don’t know which ones are what, you just literally put run your hand from the interface module, follow that cable, and the next one that will be visually saw in portal will be the one that it lands on first. Perfect. And then there’s a cable that leaves that one and goes into the next one, daisy chained, and then that’s what’ll be represented in that lineup. And here in just a minute, we’ll we’ll show that. Alright. Thank you for that question. Okay. Now once I got it wired up, how do I know that I got it wired properly? And we’re gonna show that here in just a minute. But just graphically wise, you have the ability to see if it is all wired up. You do not need to plug it into the PLC. This all it needs is 24 volts. The PLC can come later and plugging it in later and so forth. There’s no programming. This all comes out of the box. So once you plug it in, if all on the backside looking at the terminal blocks and the daisy chain ribbon cable, if it’s all green, you wired it up properly, and it’s working properly. But then if you see a red light flashing either at the terminal module because that will that will bubble up to the terminal module. So if you have a problem somewhere pardon me, the interface module. If you have some problem with the terminal modules, a push button like number two or three or four, it will bubble up into the, interface module to let it know, hey. We got a problem. Can you look to see where it’s at? And as you see here, we have maybe a device that’s defective. And so it bubbles up into the interface module to let you know, and a red light lets you know that we have maybe a defective module. You know, something hammered it pretty hard, or, it may have been miswired. Then the second one down below, we’ve got a wiring error to where you don’t have the green lights on the back and everybody else’s there’s no green light shown. That means you have a wiring error. Or if everything works great, it’s green lights across, but then the next level of this is is my push button working? So then we you’ll push or actuate the push button or actuate the selector switch, and the green light will flash to let you know that that terminal module or interface module is working properly. And we’ve done our our, loop checks right there before we’ve even plugged it into the PLC or your programmer has come out and sat down and worked with it. We can prove that that panel is ready to roll and ready to go, and you can set it aside. And if you got four or five of the same panel, you can build them all up, power it up, verify that it’s all green lights across the board. It is. Great. Set it down. Build up another one and go on from there. So it shows you fast fault detection without any additional equipment or additional people to come in and help you show you that. When we used to do loop checks, usually had somebody push the button, then yell at the programmer, hey. Is this coming in at I zero dot zero? Yeah. I see it. Okay. Or then he pushed another one. Hey. Is this coming in on I 0.one? No. It’s coming in on i0. Three. So there was that two people and then more time to do that loop check or the ring out as some people have called it. So in this case, you don’t need to do that, and you’ll see why here in just a minute. And then, again, if we do have an interface module that, maybe it got short circuited or something hit it, it you just pull the ePROM out, plug it into the new one, bring in the ribbon cable, and cycle the power, and you’re up and running. Alright. And then this is just some of the handling options of how it handles the data, with the projects and so forth, with basic setups, options that you can be handling with this, filling bottles. What we wanna make sure to understand is that if maybe push buttons, you can pick push buttons to work with whatever project you want it to do. So if you have six push buttons out there, two of them are working on one, bottle filling, and then the rest of them are working on the labeling, you can separate those push buttons. Even though that they’re all tied together via PROFINET, you can use them in different applications across your machine. Shawn Tierney (Host): You’re saying if I have multiple CPUs, I could have some buttons in light work with CPU one, PLC one, and some work with PLC two? Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. There’s handling there. There’s programming in the backside that needs to be done, but, yes, that can happen. Yep. Oh, alright. So conclusion, integrated into TI portal. We’re gonna show that here in a minute. So universal system, high flexibility with your digital in, digital outs, analogs, quick and easy installation, one man, one hand, no special tooling, and then substantially reducing the wiring and labor to get it going. And then, again, integrated safety if, required for the your time. So with that, let’s, switch over to TI portal. So I’ve already got a project started. I just called it project three. I’ve already got a PLC. I’ve got our, new g, s seven twelve hundred g two already in. And then what I’m gonna do is I’ve, already built up the panel. And, Shawn, if you wanna show your panel right here. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. Let me go ahead and switch the camera over to mine. And so now everybody’s seeing my overhead. Now do you want me to turn it on at this point? It’s off. Yeah. Yeah. Mark Berger (Siemens): Let’s do it. Shawn Tierney (Host): Gonna turn it on, and all the lights came on. So we have some push buttons and pilot lights here, but the push buttons are illuminated, and now they’ve all gone off. Do you want me to show the back now? Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. So what we did there is that we just showed that the LEDs are all working, and that’s at the initial powering up of the 24 volts. Now we’re gonna switch over and, you know, open up the cabinet and look inside, and now we’re looking on the backside. And if you remember in the PowerPoint, I said that we’d have all green lights, the everything’s wired properly. And as you look, all the terminal modules all have green lights, and so that means that’s all been wired properly. If you notice, you see a little red stripe on the ribbon cable. That’s a indication. Yep. To show you that. And then if you look on the on the out on the, the interface module, Shawn, there’s it says out right there at the bottom. Yeah. There’s a little dot, and that dot means that’s where the red stripe goes, coming out. So that little dot means that’s where the red stripe comes. Yep. Right there. And that’s how it comes out. And then if you look just to the left a little bit, there’s another, in, and there’d be a red dot underneath that ribbon cable showing you how the red the the red goes into it. Notice that everything’s clear, so you can see that the wire gets engaged properly all the way in. And then all you do is take a screwdriver and push down, and then the vent, comes in. The insulation displacement comes in and, and, makes the connections for you. So there’s no strip tie cable stripping tools or anything special for doing that. Another item, just while we’re looking, if you look in the bottom left hand corner of that terminal module, you see kind of a a t and then a circle and then another t. That’s an indicator to let you know that that’s two contactors and an LED that you have on the backside. Shawn Tierney (Host): We’re talking about right here? Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. Yep. Right there. Shawn Tierney (Host): Okay. Mark Berger (Siemens): So that’s an indicator to tell you what type of terminal block it is a terminal, block that it is. That’s two contactors and LED. And then if you look at one in the bottom left hand corner, there’s just a circle. That means you just have an LED. So you have some indicators to show you what you’re looking at and so forth. So today, we’re just using the two, LED only, and then we’re doing the contactor and LED combination. I I don’t have one there on your demo that’s just the contactor. So Shawn Tierney (Host): Now you were telling me about these earlier. Yeah. Mark Berger (Siemens): So yeah. The so if you look there on that second row of the terminal blocks, you have a UV and an AI, and I’ll show that in the schematic here in just a little bit, but there, that is a 10 volt output. If you put a 250 ohm or 250 k ohm, potentiometer and then bring that signal back into AI, you have an analog set point that comes in for it that will automatically be scaled zero to 1,000 count or zero to 10 volts. Mhmm. And then you can use that for a speed reference for a VFD. And it’s already there. All you have to do, you don’t have to scale it or anything. You can put it towards, you know, okay. Zero to 1,000 count means zero to 500 PSI or or zero to 100 feet per second on a conveyor belt, and I’m I’m just pulling numbers out. But that’s the only real scalability scaling you have to do. So it’ll be a zero to 1,000 count is what you’ll see instead of, like, yep. Then you got four digital ins that you can use and then a one digital out. Now the four, I, kinda inquired wife just four, but let’s say that you have a four position joystick. You could wire all four positions into that interface module, and then the output could be something else for a local horn that you want or something to that case with it. So you in addition to the, push buttons, you also have a small, distribution IO block right there in the in your panel. Shawn Tierney (Host): Which is cool. Yeah. I mean, maybe yeah. Like you said, maybe you have something else on the panel that doesn’t fit in with, you know, this line of push buttons and pilot lights like a joystick. Right? And that makes a lot of sense. You were saying too, if I push the button, I can test to see if it’s working. Mark Berger (Siemens): Correct. So if you yep. Go right ahead. Shawn Tierney (Host): I’m pushing that middle one right there. You can see it blinking now. Mark Berger (Siemens): And that tells you that the contacts have been made, and it’s telling you that the contacts work properly. Shawn Tierney (Host): And now I’m pushing the one below it. So that shows me that everything’s working. The contacts are working, and we’re good to go. Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. Everything’s done. We’ve done the loop checks. We know that this is ready to be plugged into the PLC and handed off to whomever is going to be, programming the PLC and bring it in, in which means that we’ll go to the next step in the TI portal. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. Let me switch back to you, and we’re seeing your TI portal now. Mark Berger (Siemens): Awesome. Okay. So I’ve got the PLC. I’ve plugged it in to if if I needed an Ethernet switch or I’ve plugged it directly into the PLC. Now I have just built up that panel. I haven’t had anything, done with it for an IP address because it is a TCP IP protocol. So we need to do a IP address, but it’s on PROFINET. And then I’m gonna come here to online access, and I wanna see that I can see it out there that I’m talking to it. So I’m gonna do update accessible devices. It’s gonna reach out via my, Ethernet port on my laptop. And then there’s our g two PLC and its IP address. So that’s that guy right here. Mhmm. And then I have something out there called accessible devices, and then this is its MAC address. So what I and I just have those two items on the network, but, you know, you could have multiples as, you know, with GI portal. We can put an entire machine in one project. So I come here and drop that down, and I go to online diagnostics. I I go online with it, but I don’t have really a lot here to tell me what’s going on or anything yet. But I come here, and I say assign IP address. And I call one ninety two, one sixty eight, zero zero zero, and zero ten zero, and then our usual 255, two fifty five, two fifty five, and then I say assign IP address. Give it a second. It’s gonna go out and tell it, okay. You’re it. Now I wanna see if it took, and you look right there, it took. And I’m I’m kinda anal, so I kinda do it again just to verify. Yep. Everything’s done. It’s got an IP address. Now I’m gonna come up, and I’m going to go to my project, and I’m gonna switch this to new network view. Here’s my PLC. I’m gonna highlight my project. Now there’s two ways I can go about it, and I’m sure, Shawn, you’ve learned that Siemens allows you to kinda do it multiple ways. I could come in here and go into my field devices, and I could come into my commanding and interface modules, and I’d start building my push button station. But we’re gonna be a little oh and ah today. We’re gonna highlight the project. I’m gonna go to online, and I’m gonna come down here to hardware detection and do PROFINET devices from network. Brings up the screen to say, hey. I want you to go out and search for PROFINET industrial Ethernet. Come out via my, NIC card from my laptop, and I want you to start search. Shawn Tierney (Host): For those of you who watched my previous episodes doing the e t 200 I o, this is exactly the same process we used for that. Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. And I found something out there that I know I gave the IP address, but it doesn’t have a PROFINET name yet. So that’s okay. I’ve I got the IP address. We’ll worry about the PROFINET name. So we’ll hide check mark this, and this could be multiple items. Shawn Tierney (Host): Mhmm. Mark Berger (Siemens): K. So now add device. Shawn Tierney (Host): And this is the sweet part. Mark Berger (Siemens): And right here, it’s done. It went out, interrogated the interface module, and said, okay. Are you there? Yep. I’m here. Here’s my IP address. And it also shared with it all of come in here, double click on it now. Shawn Tierney (Host): The real time saver. Yep. Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. And then now here’s all the push buttons in your thing. And let me zoom that out. It’s at 200%. Let’s go out to a 100. And now it already interrogated the interface module and all the terminal modules to tell me what’s in my demo. Yep. And again, as you stated in your questions, how do I know which one’s the next one? You just saw the ribbon cable Mhmm. And then it brings you so forth and so on. So that’s done. We’re good. I’m gonna go back to my network view, and I’m gonna say, hey. I want you to communicate via PROFINET to there, which I’m done. And then it also gives you here’s the PLC that you’re gonna do because, you know, if we have a big project, we may have four or five of these stations, and you wanna know which PLC is the primary PLC on it. And then we’ve done that. I’m going to quickly just do a quick compile. And next, I’m gonna come here. I’m gonna click here. Now I could just do download and and let the PROFINET name, which is here, go into it. But I’m gonna right click, and I’m gonna say assign device name and say update list. It’s gonna go interrogate the network. Takes a second. No device name assigned. No PROFINET name. So this is how we do that time determinism with PROFINET. So I’m gonna highlight it, and I say assign the name, and it’s done. Close. So now it has a PROFINET name and IP address. So now I’m able to go in here and hit download and load. And we’re going to stop because we are adding hardware, so we are putting the CPU in stop and hit finish. Now I always make sure I’m starting the CPU back up and then hit finish. And then I’m gonna go online, go over here and show network view, and go online. And I got green balls and green check marks all over the board, so I’m excited. This works out. Everything’s done. But now what about the IO? So now your programmer is already talking to it, but now I need to know what the inputs and outputs are. So go back offline, double click here, and then I’m gonna just quickly look at a couple things. The interface modules IO tags are in a different spot than the terminal modules. So just a little note. It’s right here. If you double click on integrated I LED, you click here and then go to properties and say IO tags. There it lists all of the inputs and outputs. So it comes here. But if I do a terminal module, click here, then once you just click on it in general oops. Sorry. In general, it’s right here in the IO addressing. There’s where it starts start the bytes, but then I come here to tags, and then here’s the listing. So the the the programs automatically already allocated the byte and the bit for each of these guys. So if I click there, there, click there, there’s it there, onward and upward. Now notice that the byte so if I click on position four, it is three. So it’s one one less because the base zero versus here, it’s five. Just give me a little bit of a so if you look in here, all that starts at I four dot zero. I four dot zero. So k. So that’s there. So I’m gonna come here. I’m gonna go to the selector switch for this, and I’ve called it s s one, and that’s input two dot zero. Then I’m gonna click here, and I’m gonna call this green push button. Notice there’s two inputs because I have one contactor here, one contactor there, and 30 and 31. So then what I’m gonna do is that I’m going to go over here to the PLC, and I’m gonna go to and it’s updated my PLC tag table. There you go. It’s in there. So then I’m gonna grab that guy. I’m gonna because portal pushes you to use two monitors. I’m gonna come here, go to the main OB, and then I’m gonna just grab a normally open contact, drag it on, drop it, put it in there we go. And then I’m gonna grab selector switch and drop that right there, and grab green LED and drop that right there, and then close that out and compile. And everybody’s happy. I’m gonna download and say yes. Okay. And then I’m gonna go online. Alright. So it’s waiting in for me to switch that, and there you go. And if you wanna see my screen there, Shawn, that’s the green light is turned on. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. Let me switch over to Okay. Bring up your, alright. And could you switch it back off now? Mark Berger (Siemens): Yeah. No problem. Yep. So there we go. We switch it off. We switch it on. Now I wanna show you something kinda cool. If I turn that off and I come back here and I go offline Mhmm. I have a indicator light that needs to flash to let the operator know that there’s something here I need you to attend to. So we used to put in some type of timer. Right? Mhmm. Shawn Tierney (Host): Mhmm. Mark Berger (Siemens): And so what we would do here instead of that, I’m gonna come back down here to my tab and go to the hardware config. I’m gonna double click here. I’m gonna go to module parameters, and I’m gonna drop this down, and I’m gonna put it at two hertz. Also, just to point out, I can also do a normally open contact and a normally closed contact and switch them. You see right here. Cool. And I can control the brightness of the LED if it has an LED, and it’s all hard coded into it. So once I’ve done that, do a quick compile. I’m I mean, you know, I’ve always compile and then do download. Mhmm. Mhmm. So we’re gonna download that and hit load and finish. K. Here we go. Turn that on, and now it’s flashing. Shawn Tierney (Host): That’s great. So you have a timer built in. If you need to flash, you don’t have to go get a clock bit or create your own timer. Plus, if it’s a button, you can change the contacts from normally open to normally closed. That is very cool. Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. And that is PROFINET push buttons. As I stated let me quickly pull that up. Remember, you pointed out just a few minutes ago, here is the wiring diagram for that. So here’s the back of that with the terminal blocks. And you come down here, and it shows you that you just wire in that, variable resistor or a potentiometer. And you see m and you there’s the 10 volts, and then the signal comes into a. And then that guy is right here. Excellent. So if you come here, you go to properties and IO tags, and it comes in on I 60 fours and input and IO tags, and then I could call that a pot. Yeah. And now you have a potentiometer that you can use as a a speed reference for your VFD. That is very cool. Engineering efficiency, we reduced wiring. We don’t have all the IO cards that is required, and we have the diagnostics. Emphasize that each of these here, their names, you can change those if you would like because this is your diagnostic string. So if something goes wrong here, then it would come up and say commanding. So you double click here, and we go here to general, and it’ll say commanding and underscore LED module two, or you can you can call that start conveyor p b. And then that would change this. Now see this changed it. This would be your diagnostic string to let you know if if that button got damaged or is not working properly. Shawn Tierney (Host): You know, I wanted to ask you too. If I had, let’s say I needed two potentiometers on the front of the enclosure, could I put another interface module in the system? Even if it didn’t have any push buttons on it or pilots on it, could I just put it in there to grab, some more IO? Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. Yes, sir. I have a customer that he uses these as small little IO blocks. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. I mean, if you just needed a second pot, it might make sense to buy another interface module and bring it into that than buying an analog card. Right? Assuming the resolution and everything was app you know, correct for your application, but that’s very cool. I you know, it it really goes in line with all the videos we’ve done recently looking at e t 200 I o, all the different flavors and types. And when you walk through here, you know, I’m just so especially, thankful that it reads in all the push buttons and their positions and pilot lights. Because if you have this on your desk, you’re doing your first project, you can save a lot of dragging and dropping and searching through the hardware catalog just by reading it in just like we can read in a rack of, like, e t 200 SPIO. Mark Berger (Siemens): Yep. Engineering efficiency, reducing wiring, reducing time in front of the PC to get things up and running. You saw how quickly just a simple push button and a and, you know, again, a simple start and turn that on and off the races we went. Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, Mark, I really wanna thank you. Was there anything else that we wanted to cover before we close out the show? Mark Berger (Siemens): Nope. That’s just about it. I think, we got a little bit to have your your viewers, think about for it. So I appreciate the time, and I really appreciate you allowing me to show this. I think this is a a really engineering efficiency way of going about using our push buttons and and, making everybody’s projects in a timely manner and getting everything done and having cost savings with it. Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, and I wanna thank you for taking the time out of your busy day, not only to put together a little demo like you have for me to use here in the school, but also to come on and show our audience how to use this. And I wanna thank our audience. This was actually prompted from one of you guys out there at calling in or writing in. I think it was on YouTube somewhere and saying, hey. Could you cover the PROFINET push buttons from Siemens? I didn’t even know they had them. So thanks to the viewers out there for your feedback that helps guide me on what you wanna see. And, Mark, this would not be possible if it wasn’t for your expertise. Thank you for coming back on the show. I really appreciate it. Mark Berger (Siemens): Thank you, Shawn. All the best. Thank you. Shawn Tierney (Host): I hope you enjoyed that episode. And I wanna thank Mark for taking time out of his busy schedule to put together that demo and presentation for us and really bring us up to speed on Sirius X. And I wanna thank the user out there who put a comment on one of my previous videos that said, hey. Did you know Siemens has this? Because I wouldn’t have known that unless you said that. So thank you to all you. I try to read the comments every day or at least every two days, and so I appreciate you all wherever you are, whether you’re on YouTube, the automation blog, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, and wherever you’re listening to this, I just wanna thank you for tuning in. And now with next week being Thanksgiving, we’ll have a pause in the automation show, then we have some more shows in December, and we’re already filming episodes for next year. So I’m looking forward to, releasing all those for you. And if you didn’t know, I also do another podcast called the History of Automation. Right now, it’s only available on video platforms, so YouTube, LinkedIn, and the automation blog. Hopefully, someday we’ll also do it on, audio as well. But, we’re meeting with some of the really legends in automation who worked on some of the really, you know, just really original PLCs, original HMIs, up and through, like, more modern day systems. So it’s just been a blast having these folks on to talk about the history of automation. And so if you need something to listen to during Thanksgiving week or maybe during the holidays, check out the history of automation. Again, right now, it’s only available on YouTube, the automation blog, and LinkedIn, but I think you guys will enjoy that. And I wanna wish you guys, since I won’t be back next week, a very happy Thanksgiving. I wanna thank you always for tuning in and listening, and I also wanna wish you all good health and happiness. And until next time, my friends, peace. Until next time, Peace ✌️ If you enjoyed this content, please give it a Like, and consider Sharing a link to it as that is the best way for us to grow our audience, which in turn allows us to produce more content

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OTee Virtual PLCs (P252)

The Morning Review with Lester Kiewit Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 12, 2025 48:07 Transcription Available

Shawn Tierney meets up with Henrik Pedersen and Jacob Abel to learn about OTee Virtual PLCs in this episode of The Automation Podcast. For any links related to this episode, check out the “Show Notes” located below the video. Watch The Automation Podcast from The Automation Blog: Listen to The Automation Podcast from The Automation Blog: The Automation Podcast, Episode 252 Show Notes: Special thanks to Henrik Pedersen and Jacob Abel for coming on the show, and to OTee for sponsoring this episode so we could release it “ad free!” To learn about the topics discussed in this episode, checkout the below links: OTee Virtual PLCs website Schedule an OTee demo Connect with Henrik Pedersen Connect with Jacob Abel Read the transcript on The Automation Blog: (automatically generated) Shawn Tierney (Host): Thank you for tuning back into the automation podcast. Shawn Tierney here from Insights. And this week on the show, I meet up with Henrik Pedersen and Jacob Abel to learn all about virtual PLCs from OTee. That’s o t e e. And, I just thought it was very interesting. So if you guys have ever thought about maybe running virtual PLCs to test some processes out, I think you’ll really enjoy this. With that said, I wanna welcome to the show for the very first time, Hendrik and Jacob. Guys, before we jump into your presentation and learn more about what you do, could you first introduce yourself to our audience? Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yeah. Sweetly. So my name is Hendrik. I am the cofounder, COO, OT, a new industrial automation company, that, we’re really glad to present here today. I have a background from ABB. I worked eleven years at ABB. In terms of education, I have an engineering degree and a master degree in industrial economics. And, yeah, I’m I’m excited to be here. Thanks, Rom. And I’ll pass it over to Jake. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): I’m, Jacob Abel. I’m the principal automation engineer at Edgnot. EdgeNaught is a systems integrator focusing on edge computing and virtual PLCs. My background is in mechanical engineering, and I’m a professional control systems engineer, and I have thirteen years experience in the machine building side of industrial automation, specifically in oil and gas making flow separators. And I’ll hand it back to Henrik here. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): K. Great. So OT, we are a a new industrial automation company, the new kid on the block, if you will. We’re a start up. So, we only started, about three years ago now. And, we focus solely on virtual PLCs and and the data architectures allow you to integrate virtual PLCs in in operations. And, you know, some of the listeners will be very familiar with this first, thing I’m gonna say, but I think it’s valuable to just take a take a little bit step back and and remember what has happened in in history when when it comes to to IT and OT and, and and what really what really happened with that split. Right? So it was probably around the ‘9 you know, around nineteen nineties where the the the domain computer science were really split into these two domains here, the IT and OT. And, and that, that was, that was kind of natural that that happened because we got on the, on the IT side of things, we got Internet, we got open protocols and, you know, we had the personal computers and innovation could truly flourish on the IT side. But whereas on the OT side, we were we were kind of stuck still in the proprietary, hardware software lock in situation. And and that has that has really not been solved. Right? That that that is still kind of the the situation today. And it this is what this is obviously what also, brought me personally to to really got really super motivated to solve this problem and and really dive deep into it. And I experienced this firsthand with with my role in NAD and, how how extremely locked we are at creating new solutions and new innovation on the OT side. So so we’re basically a company that wants to to truly open up the the the innovation in this space and and make it possible to adopt anything new and new solutions, that that sits above the PLC and and, you know, that integrate effectively to to the controller. So I I have this this, you know, this slide that kind of illustrates this point with with some some, you know, historical events or or at least some some some big shifts that has happened. And, Aurene mentioned a shift in nineteen nineties. And it wasn’t actually until ’20, 2006 that Gartner coined this term OT, to explain the difference really what what has happened. And and, you know, as we know, IT has just boomed with innovation since since the nineties and OT is, is, is slowly, slowly incrementally getting better, but it’s still, it’s still the innovation pace is really not, not fast. So, this is also, of course, illustrated with all the new developments in in GenAI and AgenTic AI, MCP, and things like that that is kinda booming on on the IT side of things. And and and yeah. So, but we do believe that there is actually something happening right now. And and we have data that they’re gonna show for for that. Like, the the large incumbents are now working on this as well, like virtual PLCs, software defined automation and all kinds of exciting things going on on the OT side. So we do believe that that we will see, we will see a shift, a true big shift on the OT side in terms of innovation, really the speed in which we can, we can improve and adopt new solutions on the OT side. And this is kind of exemplified by, like, what what is the endgame here? Like, you could say that the endgame could be that IT and OT once once again becomes the same high paced innovation domain. Right. But then we need to solve those underlying problems, the infrastructural problems that are still so persistent on the OT side of things. The fine point of this slide is to just illustrate what’s happening right now. It’s like cloud solutions for control is actually happening. Virtual PLC, software based automation, AI is happening all at once. And we see it with the big suppliers and and also the exciting startups that’s coming into this space. So I think there’s there’s lots of great excitement now that we can we can expect from the OT side, in in next few years. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. You know, I wanna just, just for those listening, add a little, context here. If we look at 1980, why was that so important? Why is this on the chart? And if you think about it, right, we got networks like Modbus and, Data Highway in nineteen seventy eight, seventy nine, eighty. We also got Ethernet at that time as well. And so we had on the plant floor field buses for our controls, but in the offices, people were going to Ethernet. And then when we started seeing the birth of the public Internet, right, we’re talking about in the nineties, people who are working on the plant floor, they were like, no. Don’t let the whole world access by plant floor network. And so I think that’s where we saw the initial the the divide, you know, was 1980. It was a physical divide, just physically different topologies. Right? Different needs. Right? And then and and as the Internet came out in the early nineties, it was it was now like, hey. We need to keep us safe. We know there’s something called hackers on the Internet. And and I think that’s why, as you’re saying in 2006, when Gartner, you know, coined OT, we were seeing that there was this hesitant to bring the two together because of the different viewpoints and the the different needs of both systems. So I think it’s very interesting. I know you listeners, you can’t see this, but I kinda want to go back through that and kinda give some context to those early years. And and, you know, like Henrik says, you know, now that we’re past all that, now that we’re using Ethernet on the plant floor everywhere, right, almost everywhere, on all new systems, definitely, that that becomes the right now on this on the today on the, on the chart. And I’ll turn it back to you, Henrik. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yeah. I’ll search that. I just wanna echo that as I think that there are really good reasons for why this has happened. Like, the there has you could argue that innovation could flourish on the IT side because there was less critical systems, right, less, more, you know, you can do to fail fast and you can do, you can test out things on a different level. And so so there’s really lots of good reasons for why this has happened. We do believe that right now there is some really excitement around innovation, the OT side of things and and this pent up kind of, I wouldn’t call it frustration, but this pent up potential, I think is the right word, is is can be kind of unleashed in our industry for for the next, next decade. So so we are like this is really one of the key motivators for me personally. It’s, like, I truly believe there’s something truly big going on right now. And and I I do I do encourage everyone, everyone listening, like, get in get in on this. Like, this is happening. And, you know, be an entrepreneur as well. Like, build your company, build and, you know, create something new and exciting in this space. I think I think this is this is a time that there hasn’t been a better time to create a new new technology company or a new service company in this space. So this this, this is something at least that motivates me personally a lot. So let me move over to kind of what we do. I mentioned I mentioned that we focus solely on the virtual PLC. This this is now presented in the slide for those that are listening as a as a box inside a open hardware. We can deploy a virtual PLC on any, ARM thirty two thirty two and and sixty four bit processor and x eighty six sixty four bit with the Linux kernel. So so there are lots of great, options to choose from on the hardware side. And and, and yeah. So you can obviously when you have a Virtual PLC you can think of it new in terms of your system architecture. You could for instance, you know deploy multiple Virtual PLCs on this on the same hardware and you can also, think about it like you can use a virtual PLC in combination with your existing PLCs and could work as a master PLC or some kind of optimization deterministic controller. So it’s it’s really just opening up that, you know, that architectural aspect of things. Like you can think new in terms of your system architecture, and you have a wide range of hardware to choose from. And, and yeah, So the the flexibility is really the key here, flexibility in how you architect your system. That CPU that you deploy on will will obviously be need to be connected to to the field somehow, and that’s that’s true, classical remote IO, connections. So we currently support, Modbus TCP and Ethernet IP, which is kind of deployed to to, our production environment, as it’s called. So moving on to the next slide. Like, this is kind of the summary of our solution. We have built a cloud native IDE. So meaning anyone can can basically go to our website and log in to into the solution and and give it a spin. And, we’ll show you that afterwards with with Jake. And the system interacts through a PubSub data framework. We use a specific technology called NUTS, for the PubSub communication bus. And you can add MQTT or OPC UA to the PubSub framework, according to your needs. So, and from that, you can integrate with, whatever whatever other, software you might have, in your system. So we have these value points that we always like to bring up. Like, this obviously breaks some kind of vendor lock in in terms of the hardware and the software. But it’s also, our virtual PLC is based on on the six eleven thirty one. So it’s not a lock in to any kind of proprietary programming language or anything like that. There is, there’s obviously the cost, element to this that you can potentially save a lot of cost. We have, we have verified with with with some of our customers that they estimate to save up to 60% in total cost of ownership. This is there is obviously one part is the capex side and the other part is is the opex. And and is this data framework, as I mentioned, is in in in which itself is is future proof to some extent. You can you can integrate whatever comes comes in in a year or or in a few years down the line. And, there’s environmental footprint argument for this as you can save a lot on the on the infrastructure side. We have one specific customer that estimates to save a lot on and this this particular point is really important for them. And then final two points is essentially that we have built in a zero trust based security, principle into this solution. So we have role based access control. Everything is encrypted end to end, automatic certification, and things like that. The final point is, is that this is the infrastructure that allows you to bring AI and the classical, DevOps, the the thing that we’re very used to in the IT side of things. Like, you you commit and merge and release, instead of, instead of the traditional, way of working with your automation systems. So I know this is like, this is pro pretty much, like, the boring, sales pitch slide, but, but, yeah, I just wanted to throw this this out there for for the guys that there is some there is some, intrinsic values underneath here. The way the system works, you will you will see this very soon, through the demo, but it’s basically you just go to a website, you log in, you create a project. In there, you would create your your PLC program, test, you code, you simulate. You would onboard a device. So onboard that Linux device that you you want to deploy on. This can be as simple as a Raspberry Pi, or it can be something much more industrial grade. This depends on on on the use case. And then you would deploy services like, as I mentioned, MQTT and OPC UA, and then you would manage your your your system from from the interface. And, I have this nice quote that we got to use from one of the customers we had. This is a global, automotive manufacturer that, basically tells us that it’s, they they highlighted the speed in which you can set this up, as as one of the biggest values for them, saving them a lot of hours and setting setting up the system. So I also wanted to show you a real you know, this is a actual real deployment. It was it was deployed about a year ago, and this is a pump station, or a water and wastewater operator with around 200 pump stations. They had a mix of of Rockwell and Schneider PLCs, and they had a very high upkeep, and they were losing a lot of data from these stations because they were connected over four g. When the Internet was a bit poor, they lost a bit of data in their SCADA systems, so they had these data gaps and things like that. So pretty pretty, you know, standard legacy setup to be to be honest. Quite outdated PLCs as well. So what they what they did for the first, pump station was they they, you know, removed the PLC. They put in a Raspberry Pi for for, like, â‚¬60 or, like, $70, connected it to to a to a remote IO Ethernet IP module they had, in in the storage, and deploy this data framework as I’m showing on the screen now. So so they that was that was the first station they put online, and they they chose a Raspberry Pi because they thought, okay, this is interesting, but will it work? And then they chose a pump station, which was was really just poor from before. So they had very little to to to lose to to deploy on this station. So so, yeah, this has been running for a year now without any any problems on a Raspberry Pi. We have obviously advised against using a Raspberry Pi in a critical environment, but they just insisted that that what that’s what they wanted to do for this first case. Shawn Tierney (Host): And I’ll back that up too. Your generic off the shelf Raspberry Pi is just like a generic off the shelf computer. It’s not rated for these type of environments. Not that all pump houses are really bad, but they’re not air conditioned. And I think we’ve all had that situation when it’s a 120, 130 out that, you know, off the shelf computer components can act wonky as well as when they get below freezing. So just wanted to chime in there and agree with you on that. For testing, it’s great. But if you’re gonna leave it in there, if you were in my town and you say you’re gonna leave that in there permanently, I would ask to have you, assigned somewhere else for the town. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. No. So and and that point is also illustrated with the second station they brought online. So there they chose a much more industrial grade CPU, that, that, was much, you know, cost cost a bit more, but it’s more suited for the environment. And, and yeah. So this was, I can disclose it was a Bayer Electronics, CPU. So so yeah. And, and they reported, some good, good metrics in terms of, like, the results. They they said around 50 on the hardware, 75% on the management of the PLC system. So this relates more to that they have very a lot of, you know, driving out with the car to these stations and doing changes to their systems and, and updates. They no longer have any, any data loss. It’s local buffer on the data framework. They’ve increased tag capacity with 15 x, resulting in in four fifty five x better data resolution and a faster scan frequency. And this is actually on the Raspberry Pi. So so just just think of it as as the the even the even the, kind of the lowest quality IT off the shelf, computers, are are able to to, to execute really fast in in in, or fast enough for for, for these cases. So, Shawn, that was actually what I wanted to say. And, and also, you know, yeah, we are we are a start up, but we do have, fifth users now in 57 different countries across the world. And it’s it’s really cool to see our our our, our technology being deployed around the world. And, and yeah. I’m really, really excited to to, to get more, users in and and hear what they what they, think of the solution. So so yeah. I’ll I’ll with that, I don’t know if, Shawn, you wanna you shoot any questions or if we should hand it over to Jake for for for a demo. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. Just before we go to Jake, if somebody who’s listening is interested, this might be a good time. It said that, you already talked about being cloud based. It’s, o t e e. So Oscar Tom, Edward Edward for the the name of the company. Where would they go if if they like what Jake’s gonna show us next? Where will they go to find out more? Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yeah. So I would honestly propose that they just, reach out to to me or Jake, on on one of the QR codes that we have on the presentation. But they can also obviously go to our website, 0t.io,0tee.io, and just, either just, log in and test the product, or they could reach out to us, through our website, through the contact form. So yeah. Shawn Tierney (Host): Perfect. Perfect. Alright, Jake. I’ll turn it over to you. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): Thanks, Shawn. Fantastic stuff, Henrik. I wanna take a second too to kinda emphasize some of the technical points that you, presented on. Now first, the the fact that you have the built in zero trust cybersecurity is so huge. So, I mean, the OT cybersecurity is blowing up right now. So many certifications, you know, lots of, consulting and buzz on LinkedIn. I mean, it’s a very real concern. It’s for a good reason. Right? But with this, zero trust built in to the system, I I mean, you can completely close-up the firewall except for one outgoing port. And you have all the virtual PLCs connected together and it’s all done. You know, there’s no incoming ports to open up on the firewall to worry about, you know, that security concern. You know, it’s basically like, you know, you’ve already set up a VPN server, if you will. It’s it’s not the same, but similar and, you know, taking care of that connection already. So there’s an immense value in that, I think. Shawn Tierney (Host): And I wanted to add to the zero trust. We’ve covered it on the show. And just for people, maybe you’ve missed it. You know, with zero trust is you’re not trusting anyone. You authorize connections. Okay? So by default, nobody’s laptop or cell phone or tablet can talk to anything. You authorize, hey. I want this SCADA system to talk to this PLC. I want this PLC to talk to this IO. I want this historian to talk to this PLC. Every connection has to be implicitly I’m sorry. Explicitly, enabled and trusted. And so by default, you know, an an integrator comes into the plant, he can’t do anything because in a zero trust system, somebody has to give him and his laptop access and access to specific things. Maybe he only gets access to the PLC, and that makes sense. Think about it. Who knows whether his laptop has been? I mean, we’ve heard about people plug in to the USB ports of the airport and getting viruses. So it’s important that person’s device or a SCADA system or a historian only has access to exactly what it needs access to. Just like you don’t let the secretary walk on the plant floor and start running the machine. Right? So it’s a it’s an important concept. We’ve covered it a lot. And and, Jake, I really appreciate you bringing that up because zero trust is so huge, and I think it’s huge for OT to have it built into their system. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): I wanted to highlight too the Henrik mentioned that the the backbone of the system is running on a technology called NATS. That’s spelled n a t s. And why that’s important is this is a a lightweight messaging, service, and it’s designed to send millions of messages per second. You know, that’s opposed to, you know, probably the best Modbus TCP device that you can find. You might get a couple 100 messages through per second. It’s millions of messages per second. It’s, you know, especially with, you know, we’re dealing with AI machine learning, you know, training models. I mean, we’re data hungry. Right? So this gives you the backbone too. You know, it’s like it can push an immense amount of tag data, you know, with ease. I think that’s another really important point. With that, though, I’ll I’ll get on to the demo. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Oh, that’s great. We do we do see that, Jay, that most of our customers report on that, you know, 400 or 700 x better data resolution. And so it’s it’s a step change for for for the data resolution there. Yeah. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): Excellent. So one of the things that I personally love about OT is how quickly you can get into the PLC once everything’s set up. So this is OT’s website, obviously, ot.io. So once you’re here, you just go to log in. And that brings in the login screen. Now I’m are I’m using my Google account for single sign on, so I can just click continue with Google. And this brings me into the main interface. And another thing that I love is that, you know, it is very simple and straightforward, you know, and simple is not a bad thing. Simple is a good thing. I mean, the way that things should be is that it should be, it should be easy and the finer details are taken care of for you. So right here, we have our main project list. I just have this one benchmarking program that I’ve imported in here. And you also have device lists, just a a test device that I’ve installed the runtime on. Just real quick. You know, you have a Martha, the AI assistant in the corner here. And, the documentation guides is up here. So you can get help or look into reference material very easily. It’s all right there for you. So I’m gonna open up this program here. So just a quick tour here. Right up here in the top left is basically where where most everything’s done. So if you click on this little down arrow, you can choose what virtual PLC runtime to attach it to. I’ve already attached it to the device. I installed the runtime on. You can add, you know, a new program, driver, function blocks, custom data types real quick here. Compile your program, download it to the device. Check the release history, which is really, really great. As you can, you can go into release history and you can revert to a prior version very easily. We got built in, version control, which is another, great feature. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): I can also just comment on that, Jake, that we do have we do have, in the quite short term roadmap to also expand on that with Git integration, that, a lot of our customers are are asking for. So yeah. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): Awesome. Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s another, very hot topic right now. It’s, you know, getting getting the revision control systems, as part of, you know, at least the textual, programming languages. See, so, you know, we have a few, like, housekeeping things here. I mean, you can delete the program, export it. It’s a good good point here is that, OT complies with the PLC open, XML specification. So you can import or export programs, in this XML format, and it should work with solid majority of other automation software out there. You know, if you need to, you want to transition over to OT, you know, you can export it from your other software and import it rather easily. Got your program list here and, you know, just the basic configuration of, you know, you can add global variables that you wanna share between the different programs and POUs or, you know, change the, cycle rate of the periodic tasks, add more tasks. Let’s just get jump into this program here. Both the system uses the IEC sixty one one thirty one dash three standard structured text. So here’s just a little, quick benchmark program that I’ve been using to do some performance testing. Like you, you have the, the code right here, obviously. And on our, our right, the variable list, very easy to add a new variable and pick out the type. You can set a set of default value, add some notes to it. Super easy. So let’s go online. So if you have these little glasses up here in the top, right, you display live tag values. And so it’s grabbing from the runtime that’s running and plopping it right in here in the editor, which I I love the way it’s displayed. It makes it. And, you know, it’s one of the question marks is if you’re doing structured text instead of letter logic, like how it’s gonna show up and how readable is it gonna be. I think the, the text, like the color contrast here helps a lot. It’s very, very readable and intuitive. And we also have the tag browser on the right hand side. Everything is, organized into, you know, different groups. There’s the the resources and instances that you’ve set up in the configuration tab. So the by default, the tag the tags are all listed under there. And here too, you know, you can set tag values doing some performance testing, as I said. So this is, recording some some jitter and task time metrics. And that’s that’s really it. That’s the that’s the cloud IV in a nutshell. Super easy, very intuitive. I mean, it’s there there’s zero learning curve here. Shawn Tierney (Host): For the, audio audience, just a little comment here. First of all, structured text to me seems to be, like, the most compatible between all PLCs. So, you know, everybody does ladder a little bit differently. Everybody does function blocks a little bit differently. But structured text and, again, I could be wrong if you guys think out there in the in listening, think I’m wrong about that. But when I’ve seen structured text and compared it between multiple different vendors, it always seems to be the closest from vendor to vendor to vendor. So I can see this makes a great a great place to start for OT to have a virtual PLC that supports that because you’re gonna be able to import or export to your maybe your physical PLCs. The other thing is I wanted to comment on what we’re seeing here. So, many of you who are familiar with structured text, you know, you may have an if then else, or an if then. And and you may have, like, tag x, equals, you know, either some kind of calculation, you know, maybe, you know, z times y or just maybe a a constant. But what we’re seeing here is as we’re running, they have inserted at a in a different color the actual value of, let’s say, tag x. So in between you know, right next to tag x, we see the actual value changing and updating a few times a second. And so it makes it very easy to kinda monitor this thing while it’s running and see how everything’s working, and I know that’s that’s huge. And I know a lot of vendors also do this as well, but I love the integration here, how it’s so easy to see what the current values are for each of these variables. And, I’ll turn it over to you, Hendrick. I think I interrupted you. Go ahead. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yeah. No. I was just gonna comment on that. Jake said, like, this is the this is the POC editor, and the next the next big feature that we’re releasing very soon is essentially the service, manager, which is the, which is the feature that will allow our users to deploy any kind of service very efficiently, like another runtime or OPC UA server or an entity server or or or whatever other, software components that that, you want to deploy, like a Knox server or things like that. So and that’s that’s, we were really excited about that because, that will kind of allow for a step change in how you kind of orchestrate and manage your system and your, your system and your, your, you have a very good overview of what’s going on with versions of, of the different software components running in your, your infrastructure and your devices and things like that. So we’re really excited about that, that it’s coming out. And it might be that actually when when this, episode airs, who knows if it’s if it’s done or or not, but we’re very close to release the first version of that. So excited about that. Shawn Tierney (Host): Now I have a question for you guys, and maybe this is off topic a little bit. So let’s say I’m up here in the cloud. I’m working on a program, and I have some IO on my desk I wanna connect it to. Is that something I can do? Is there a connector I can download and install my PC to allow the cloud to talk to my IO? Or is that something where I have to get a a, you know, a local, you know, like we talked about those industrial Linux boxes and and test it here with that? Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yeah. So I think you what you what you’re you’re after is, like, the IO configuration of, if you wanna deploy a driver, right, or, like, a modbus driver and how you figure out the system. Right? Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. Because this is in the cloud. It’s not on my desk. The IO is on my desk. So how would I connect the two of them? How would I is is that something that can be done? Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yep. Yeah. Exactly. That’s that’s actually the you know, I I think, Jake, you might just wanna show why you deploy a driver. Right? Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): Sure. Sure. And I just wanna take a second to, clarify. You know, it’s something that kinda comes up often, and I I don’t I don’t think it gets it’s it’s cleared up enough is that so, you know, we have this cloud ID here. So, you know, you can open this from anywhere in the world. But the virtual PLC run times get installed on computers preferably very locally, you know, on the machine, on the factory floor, something like that. I I’ve got, an edge computer right here. Just as an example. I mean, this is something you would just pop in the control panel and you can install OT on this. So to answer your question better, Shawn, you know, to get to, you know, the remote IO that you need essentially, or actually in the, in the case of this, this has onboard IO. You know, you’re looking at connecting with MOBAs, PCP, Ethernet IP. I I know that a lot more protocols are coming. Profinet. So how you would do that is that you have that plus sign up here and add a driver config. We’re just gonna do, Modbus real quick. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Mhmm. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): And we wanna add a TCP client. So you can name the client, tell it how fast to pull, you know, any delays, put in the IP address. Just an example. Do the port number if you need and then add your requests. You know, you have support for, all the main function codes and mod bus right here, you know, read holding, read input, you know, write multiple coils, all that good stuff, you know, tell address how many registers you wanna do, timeouts, slave ID. And then, you know, once you’ve done that, so let’s say, you know, I’m gonna read, and holding registers here, the table on the right auto updates. You can do aliases for each one of these. You can just do register one Mhmm. As an example Shawn Tierney (Host): It’s showing just for the audio audience, it’s showing the absolute address for all these modbus, variables and then, has the symbols, and he’s putting in his own symbol name. It has a default symbol name of symbol dash something, and he’s putting his own in, like, register one, which makes it easier. Yeah. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): Good point. Yeah. Good point. Thanks, Shawn. So, yeah, once once you put in your request and you can throw in some aliases, for the different registers, you know, you can go back to your program and here’s this, sample variable that I just added from earlier. You know, you can the registers are 16 bits. I’m gonna select, an int. And what you can do here now is select those modbus requests that you just set up. So it automatically maps these to those variables for you. So that that way you don’t have to do anything anything manual, like have a separate program to say, you know, this tag equals, you know, register 40,001. You know, it’s already mapped for you. So that’s that’s essentially how you would connect to remote IO is, just add a client in the driver configs and, fill in all your info and be off and running. Shawn Tierney (Host): That’s excellent. I really liked how you were able to easily map the register to the modbus value you’re reading in or writing to to your, variable so you can use that in your program. That was very easy to do. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s that it’s like I said, that’s one of the things that I love about this interface is that everything is just very straightforward. You know, it’s it’s super easy to just stumble upon whatever it is you need and figure it out. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): And just just, to add to to kinda your your processors, like, once you have created that connection between the IO and and and the program, you basically just, compile it and download it to the to the runtime again, and and it executes locally the based on the yeah. Nice. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): Oh, right. Good point. Yeah. Of of course, after we add something, we do have to redownload. So Shawn Tierney (Host): Very interesting. Well, that answers my question. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): I think that’s that’s about it for the the demo. I mean, unless, Shawn, you have any more questions about the interface here. Shawn Tierney (Host): No. It looked pretty straightforward to me, Hendrik. I don’t know. Did you have anything else you wanted to discuss while we have the demo up? Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Nope. Not nothing related to this except for that, you know, this is probably something that’s quite new in the OT space is that this is a software service, meaning that there are continuous development going on and releases, and improvements to the software all the time. Like literally every week we deploy new improvements. And, and what, I typically say is that like, the, you know, if you if you if you sign up with OT, what you what you will experience is that the actual software keeps on becoming better over time and not is not going to become outdated. It’s going to be just better over time. And I think that’s part of what I really loved about the innovation space, innovation happening around IT is that that, that has become the new de facto standard in how you develop software and great software. And I think we in, in, in the OT space, we need to adopt that same methodology of developing software, something that continuously becomes better over time. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. And I would just say, you know, if you’re if you’re on the OT side of things, you wanna be in six eleven thirty one dash three languages, because these are things that your staff, you know, what you know, your electricians and technicians and even engineers, you know, should know, should be getting up to speed. I don’t know. We’re at the automation school. We’re teaching, structured text. And so, easier. I look at this, and I’m like, this is a lot easier than trying to learn c plus or or JavaScript. So in any case, I think, you know, if it’s an OT side real IO control, real control system or data collection, you know, you know, very important, you know, mission critical data collection, then, you know, I’d rather have this than somebody trying to write some custom code for me and, you know, use some kind of computer language who doesn’t understand, you know, the OT side of things. So, I could definitely see the advantage of your system, Henrik. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yep. I I I also wanted to say to that, Stike, the I I do not believe the EIC standards in general will disappear. They exist for a very good reason. Right. Exists to standardise to to ensure safety and determinists, determinism in this. So I don’t think they will disappear. But there are obviously advances now with AI and things like that that can can help us create these things much faster and much more efficient and things like that. So, so but, but the EIC standards, I think, will be there for a very long time. Obviously, the 06/4099 standard is is really exciting, and and we believe that that can be, yeah, that that can clearly be there, but it’s still a new EIC standard. So, Shawn Tierney (Host): it’s not think what we’re gonna see is we’re gonna see a lot more libraries fleshed out. There’ll be a lot less writing from scratch. We’ve interviewed on the History of Automation podcast. We’ve interviewed some big integrators, and they’re at a point now, you know, twenty, thirty years on that they have libraries for everything. And I think that’s where we’ll see, you know, much like the DCS, I think, vendors went two years ago. But I still think that the there’s a reason for these languages. There’s a reason to be able to edit things while they run. There’s a reason for different languages for different applications and different, people maintaining them. So I agree with you on that. I don’t I don’t think we’re we’re gonna see the end of these, these standard languages that have done us very well since the, you know, nineteen seventies. Jacob Abel (Edgenaut): I just wanna add a bit on there about, Shawn, you mentioned, you know, doing less code. I I did show earlier in the bottom right hand corner here, we have our our little AI assistant, Martha. I don’t believe the feature, it has been released yet. You know, Henrik, correct me if I’m wrong, but I know one of the things that’s coming is, AI code generation, you know, similar to that of cloud or chat GPT. So it’s going to, you know, you can open this guy up here. You know, right right now, I think it’s just for, help topics, but you’ll be able to talk to Martha and she’s gonna generate code for you in your program there all built in. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s coming really fast now. So, it’s it’s not been implemented yet, but it’s, it’s right around the corner. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. And it’s it’s not gonna be able to it’s you’re not gonna be able to hook a camera up to it and, like, take pictures of your machine and say, okay. Write the control code for this. But, you know, if you had a, you know, process that had 12 steps in it, the AI could definitely help you generate that code and and other code. And we’ll have to have Henrik and Jake back on to talk about that when it comes out, but, you know, it’s gonna be able to save you, reduce the tedious part of the the coding. You know, if you need an array of so many tags and so many dimensions or, you know, the stuff that, you know, it would just be the typing intensive, it’s gonna be able to help you with that, and then you can actually put the context in there. Just like, you can pull up a template in Word for a letter, and then you can fill in the blanks. You know? And and, of course, AI is helping make that easier too. But, in any case, Henrik, maybe you can come back on when that feature launches. Henrik Pedersen (OTee): Yeah. Absolutely. And I’m also excited about just a simple a use case of of translating something. Right? Translating your existing let’s say if it’s a proprietary code or something like that, like, getting it getting it standardized and translating it to the ESE six eleven thirty one standard, for instance, or, so so the obviously AI is, like, perfect for this space. It’s there is no doubt, And and it’s, like, that’s also why I’m so excited about, like, what’s going on at the moment. It’s like there’s so much innovation potential, in the on the OT side now that, they are with all these new technologies. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, gentlemen, was there anything else you wanted to cover? Henrik Pedersen (OTee): I think just just one final thing from from me is, like, we thought a lot about it, like, before this this episode, and we thought, like, let’s offer let’s offer the listeners something something of of true value. So so we thought, the, you know, after this after this episode launched, we want to want to offer anyone out there that’s listening a free, completely hands on trial of our technology, in their in their in their environment or on their Raspberry Pi or whatever. So just just reach out to us if you wanna do that. And, and I yeah. We’ll get you set up for for for testing this, and it’s not gonna cost you anything. Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, that’s great. And, guys, if you’re listening, if you do take advantage of that free trial, please let me know what you thought about it. But, Henrik, thank you so much for, that offer to our listening audience. Guys, don’t be bashful. Reach out to him. Reach out to Jake. Jake, thank you for doing the demo as well. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. Any final words, Henrik, before we close out? Henrik Pedersen (OTee): No. It’s been great. Great, being here, Shawn, and thanks for for helping us. Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode. I wanna thank Hendrik and Jacob for coming on the show, telling us all about OT virtual PLCs, and then giving us a demo. I thought it was really cool. Now if any of you guys take them up on their free trial, please let me know what you think. I’d love to hear from you. And, with that, I do wanna thank OT for sponsoring this episode so we could release it completely ad free. And I also wanna thank you for tuning back in this week. We have another podcast coming out next week. It’ll be early because I will be traveling and doing an event with a vendor. And so expect that instead of coming out on Wednesday to come out on Monday if all goes as planned. And then we will be skipping the Thanksgiving, week, and then we’ll be back in the in the, in December, and then we have shows lined up for the new year already as well. So thank you for being a listener, a viewer, and, please, wherever you’re consuming the show, whether it’s on YouTube or on the automation blog or at iTunes or Spotify or Google Podcasts or anywhere, please give us a thumbs up and a like or a five star review because that really helps us expand our audience and find new vendors to come on the show. And with that, I’m gonna end by wishing you good health and happiness. And until next time, my friends, peace. Until next time, Peace ✌️ If you enjoyed this content, please give it a Like, and consider Sharing a link to it as that is the best way for us to grow our audience, which in turn allows us to produce more content

Could online community-led dialogue reduce the spread of election misinformation?

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2025 14:18 Transcription Available

Could online Community-led Dialogue reduce the spread of election misinformation? Stefan Snel, Director at Tales of Turning weighs in now. Views and News with Clarence Ford is the mid-morning show on CapeTalk. This 3-hour long programme shares and reflects a broad array of perspectives. It is inspirational, passionate and positive. Host Clarence Ford’s gentle curiosity and dapper demeanour leave listeners feeling motivated and empowered. Known for his love of jazz and golf, Clarrie covers a range of themes including relationships, heritage and philosophy. Popular segments include Barbs’ Wire at 9:30am (Mon-Thurs) and The Naked Scientist at 9:30 on Fridays. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Views & News with Clarence Ford Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays between 09:00 and 12:00 (SA Time) to Views and News with Clarence Ford broadcast on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/erjiQj2 or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/BdpaXRn Subscribe to the CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/sbvVZD5 Follow us on social media: CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

#432: China MedTech Compliance: Regulatory Risks, Rewards, & Strategy with Elaine Tan

Global Medical Device Podcast powered by Greenlight Guru

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2025 45:34

This episode dives into the complex and often misunderstood MedTech market in China, featuring Elaine Tan, creator of MedTech Chopsticks, who translates the nation's stringent regulatory language into actionable insights. Elaine and host Etienne Nichols discuss the substantial risks and rewards of bringing a medical device to China, highlighting the country's rapid execution, intense internal competition, and the shift from low-end manufacturing to a focus on high-level innovation. A key risk is that existing international certifications (like ISO and IEC) do not guarantee compliance, requiring local type testing and adherence to specific national standards.The conversation addresses how global medical device companies can structure their strategy amid ongoing geopolitical shifts and the "China for China" policy, which favors domestic products through initiatives like the Volume-Based Procurement (VBP). Strategies such as the dual-strategy approach—localizing low-consumable manufacturing while protecting high-technology IP through joint ventures or careful CMO/CDMO selection—are explored as pragmatic ways to secure market presence and margin. Understanding the regulatory landscape, particularly the NMPA's 2021 overhaul, is crucial for success.Finally, Elaine provides practical guidance for regulatory professionals intimidated by the market. This includes understanding the specific regulatory and clinical pathways, performing a gap analysis against Chinese standards (Product Technical Requirements or PTR), and the critical process of selecting and qualifying a local partner/agent. Elaine reveals a specific, often overlooked hurdle: the agent must possess an NMPA-approved CA (Certification Authorization) USB key to electronically submit registration files on behalf of the foreign manufacturer, a critical piece of the submission puzzle. The discussion also touches on leveraging special zones, like the Hainan Free Trade Zone, for crucial real-world data collection applicable to the Chinese population.Key Timestamps[02:40] Introduction to Elaine Tan, MedTech Chopsticks, and the show's focus on the China market.[05:05] High-level risks and rewards: complexity, lengthy registration, local testing requirements, and IP concerns.[08:08] Discussing the NMPA's 2021 regulatory overhaul and the geopolitical shift toward "China for China."[11:00] The Dual Strategy approach: balancing low-end localization with protecting high-tech IP.[14:48] Using CDMOs/CMOs for pilot projects to manage financial investment risk.[16:20] Leveraging the Hainan Free Trade Zone (Bo'ao region) for pre-market clinical data collection and urgent needs product access.[18:42] Ethological differences and their impact on clinical data justification (e.g., Pulse Oximeters).[20:17] NMPA predicate search: The importance of using the Chinese Classification Catalog to find registered, local predicate devices.[23:00] Guidance for overwhelmed regulatory professionals entering the China market: Clinical strategy and Product Technical Requirements (PTR).[25:52] Pitfalls in partner selection: The necessity of the NMPA-approved CA (Certification Authorization) USB key for submissions.[29:30] Partner qualification: Ensuring the agent can support Post-Market Surveillance (PMS) and QMS self-inspection requirements.[30:52] Final pitfall: International compliance (ISO/IEC) does not automatically ensure China...

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Should You Work with an IEC (Independent Educational Consultant)? With Kristina Dooley

College Bound Mentor

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 6, 2025 46:52

An IEC (Independent Educational Consultant) can be a huge help on your student's high school & college journey. How do you know whether an IEC is right for you - and what should you look for in an IEC? In this episode, we welcome on Kristina Dooley, a Certified Educational Planner and Founder of Estrela Consulting - a multi-consultant educational consulting firm based in Ohio. In addition to her 18 years of experience as an IEC, Kristina has previously served as a college admission officer, a school-based college counselor, and as a Past President of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA). Hear what an IEC actually does, the dynamic between school counselors & IECs, key questions to ask an IEC to find out if they're the right fit, the drastic ways the industry has changed in the last 5 years, and why campus visits are more essential than ever. Connect with Kristina at EstrelaConsulting.com and on LinkedIn, and Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com

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The Star Map to the Future with Leo Eisner - Star Trek

Dr. Kamal

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 4, 2025 12:32

What does Star Trek have to do with medical device safety? More than you think.

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The Midday Report 04 November 2025

The Midday Report with Mandy Wiener

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 4, 2025 41:45 Transcription Available

Catch Up on the latest leading news stories around the country with Mandy Wiener on Midday Report every weekday from 12h00 - 13h00 The Midday Report with Mandy Wiener is 702 and CapeTalk’s flagship news show, your hour of essential news radio. The show is podcasted every weekday, allowing you to catch up with a 60-minute weekday wrap of the day's main news. It's packed with fast-paced interviews with the day’s newsmakers, as well as those who can make sense of the news and explain what's happening in your world. All the interviews are podcasted for you to catch up and listen to. Thank you for listening to this podcast of The Midday Report Listen live on weekdays between 12:00 and 13:00 (SA Time) to The Midday Report broadcast on 702 https://buff.ly/gk3y0Kj and on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from The Midday Report go to https://buff.ly/BTGmL9H and find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/LcbDdFI Subscribe to the 702 and CapeTalk daily and weekly newsletters https://buff.ly/v5mfetc Follow us on social media: 702 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TalkRadio702 702 on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@talkradio702 702 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkradio702/ 702 on X: https://x.com/Radio702 702 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@radio702 CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Ep. 154: "Compromise the Windings"

The Truth About Vintage Amps with Skip Simmons

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2025 88:09

It's the 154th episode of the Truth About Vintage Amps, the call-in show where amp tech Skip Simmons fields your questions on all things tube amps. Some of the topics discussed this week: :42 Skip is back on the Ferguson TO-35 tractor; Roy Clark & Joe Pass 7:04 What's on Skip's bench: A Marshall Plexi Super Bass, Marshall bright caps, the Pet Shop Boys 11:43 Our sponsors Grez Guitars; Emerald City Guitars and Amplified Parts; more Fender Champ mods; a Champ gain input baffler; Soursound transformers 23:51 200 more power cords; IEC hijinks; Steve Soest 28:13 A 1954 Fender Tweed Twins and the low-powered versus high-powered Twins; Tweed Pros; Fender Champion 600 amps 31:49 A Lafayette PA with ECL82 tubes (watch on Instagram) 33:45 A 1960s Airline 62-9021A amp; how to tell a Supro/Valco from a Danelctro amp 37:33 Skip's advice for a future repair business; liability insurance; the Boilermaker; the amp that couldn't be fixed 49:06 A listener-submitted baffler: A Supro that needed a speaker recone? 52:29 What should I do with my new Knight 93350 PA head? 58:03 Should I build a 6G4 or a 6G4A in this Northern Electric PA-20 with six pre-amp sockets? 1:04:28 Wiring a Danelectro DS-100 speaker output for use with other cabs 1:11:10 Recommended media: The Birth of Loud; The Sweeney; Taggart 1:12:52 Burning up chokes in a Princeton Reverb 1:14:13 Listers on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-wAqplQAo 1:15:18 ESR meters and ceviche Want amp tech Skip Simmons' advice on your DIY guitar amp projects? Want to share your top secret family recipe? Need relationship advice? Join us by sending your voice memo or written questions to podcast@fretboardjournal.com! Include a photo, too. Hosted by amp tech Skip Simmons and co-hosted/produced by Jason Verlinde of the Fretboard Journal. Don't forget, we have a Patreon page. Support the show, get behind-the-scenes updates and get to the front of the line with your questions.

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ActionSA: ANC's debt settlement agreement with Ezulweni Investments breaks Political Party Funding Act

First Take SA

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2025 8:19

ActionSA has reportedly obtained the confidential agreement behind the ANC's R150 million debt settlement with Ezulweni Investments, which it says breaks the Political Party Funding Act. The deal, now public through ANC court papers, shows the ANC ordered R190 million worth of election materials to write off the R150 million debt - a move ActionSA calls an unlawful donation-in-kind exceeding the R15 million annual donor limit. ActionSA says the agreement contravenes the Act, contradicting statements by ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa and the IEC. Elvis Presslin spoke to ActionSA National Chairperson, Michael Beaumont

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Episode 235 | Leo Eisner, Founder and Principal Compliance & Regulatory Consultant of Eisner Safety Consultants | Navigating IEC 60601 Compliance for Medtech Innovation

Project Medtech

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 6, 2025 39:12

In this episode, Duane Mancini sits downs with Leo Eisner, a seasoned expert in medical device safety and compliance, as he shares his extensive experience and knowledge on the IEC 60601 standards. With a career spanning over 40 years, Leo talks about his beginnings at NASA, his role in the development of medical safety standards, and the intricacies of compliance testing. Discover the complexities of the IEC 60601 updates, the importance of staying informed, and practical advice for medical device manufacturers.Leo Eisner LinkedInEisner Safety Consultants WebsiteImpacts on IEC 60601-1 WebinarDuane Mancini LinkedInProject Medtech WebsiteProject Medtech LinkedIn

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255: How AI is Reshaping Security and OT Network Requirements featuring Felipe Sabino Costa, Sr. Product Manager for Networking & Cybersecurity at Moxa

Manufacturing Happy Hour

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 30, 2025 43:54

It's been over a year since we've talked about cybersecurity on Manufacturing Happy Hour, and with AI changing the game completely, we're overdue for a refresh. Around 80-85% of the global industry doesn't have basic defense at the edge of their networks; that's a sobering statistic.Felipe Sabino Costa, Senior Product Manager for Networking and Cybersecurity at Moxa, joins the show to break down why Operational Technology (OT) security matters more than ever. Manufacturers need to transmit massive amounts of data for AI and predictive analytics, but they're working with 15–20-year-old infrastructure that wasn't built for this.The good news is, Felipe shares practical frameworks like NIST and IEC 62443 (which he compares to nutrition labels) that help manufacturers build security into their operations. The key takeaway? There's no silver bullet; it's about building layers of defense and finding the right partners.In this episode, find out:Why OT data has shifted from historical logging to real-time predictive powerThe bandwidth issue hitting intelligent transportation systems and semiconductor manufacturingHow AI enables attackers to adapt their attacks in real-timeWhy 80-85% of global industry lacks protectionFelipe's nutrition label analogy for understanding security certificationsThe difference between thinking your air-gapped and actually being air-gappedWhy defense requires multiple layers of securityFelipe's outlook on the future of OT networksEnjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It's feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!Tweetable Quotes:“We used to be air-gapped or isolated. And many of the companies, they still think that they are, but they are not anymore. To be really air-gapped, I shouldn't have any way to send data.”“Give and take, 80% of the global industry, including the US, does not have these specific layers of defense. They have some defense, but they have nearly zero protection close to the process itself.”“There is no silver bullet. We are seeing this shift right from how we used to do security. A strategy should be way more sophisticated.”Links & mentions:OT Network Security: Investment & Segmentation Strategies, a webinar that addresses the financial and operational risks posed by cyber threats while offering hands-on guidance for OT network security Futureproof Industrial Networks, a website shares how to design and implement a robust, secure, and efficient network infrastructure that can meet the demands of modern industrial environments and optimize operational processesMoxa, delivering the reliable and secure connectivity foundation that advanced analytics and AI depend on, with solutions in edge connectivity, industrial computing, and network infrastructure Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

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255: How AI is Reshaping Security and OT Network Requirements featuring Felipe Sabino Costa, Sr. Product Manager for Networking & Cybersecurity at Moxa

Global Medical Device Podcast powered by Greenlight Guru

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 30, 2025 43:54

Podcast: Manufacturing Happy Hour (LS 43 · TOP 1% what is this?)Episode: 255: How AI is Reshaping Security and OT Network Requirements featuring Felipe Sabino Costa, Sr. Product Manager for Networking & Cybersecurity at MoxaPub date: 2025-09-30Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationIt's been over a year since we've talked about cybersecurity on Manufacturing Happy Hour, and with AI changing the game completely, we're overdue for a refresh. Around 80-85% of the global industry doesn't have basic defense at the edge of their networks; that's a sobering statistic.Felipe Sabino Costa, Senior Product Manager for Networking and Cybersecurity at Moxa, joins the show to break down why Operational Technology (OT) security matters more than ever. Manufacturers need to transmit massive amounts of data for AI and predictive analytics, but they're working with 15–20-year-old infrastructure that wasn't built for this.The good news is, Felipe shares practical frameworks like NIST and IEC 62443 (which he compares to nutrition labels) that help manufacturers build security into their operations. The key takeaway? There's no silver bullet; it's about building layers of defense and finding the right partners.In this episode, find out:Why OT data has shifted from historical logging to real-time predictive powerThe bandwidth issue hitting intelligent transportation systems and semiconductor manufacturingHow AI enables attackers to adapt their attacks in real-timeWhy 80-85% of global industry lacks protectionFelipe's nutrition label analogy for understanding security certificationsThe difference between thinking your air-gapped and actually being air-gappedWhy defense requires multiple layers of securityFelipe's outlook on the future of OT networksEnjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It's feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!Tweetable Quotes:“We used to be air-gapped or isolated. And many of the companies, they still think that they are, but they are not anymore. To be really air-gapped, I shouldn't have any way to send data.”“Give and take, 80% of the global industry, including the US, does not have these specific layers of defense. They have some defense, but they have nearly zero protection close to the process itself.”“There is no silver bullet. We are seeing this shift right from how we used to do security. A strategy should be way more sophisticated.”Links & mentions:OT Network Security: Investment & Segmentation Strategies, a webinar that addresses the financial and operational risks posed by cyber threats while offering hands-on guidance for OT network security Futureproof Industrial Networks, a website shares how to design and implement a robust, secure, and efficient network infrastructure that can meet the demands of modern industrial environments and optimize operational processesMoxa, delivering the reliable and secure connectivity foundation that advanced analytics and AI depend on, with solutions in edge connectivity, industrial computing, and network infrastructure Make sure to visit http://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Chris Luecke, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

#426: Software as a Medical Device: Securing Your Digital Future

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 29, 2025 44:59

In this episode, host Etienne Nichols sits down with Jose Bohorquez and Mohamad Foustok from CyberMed to dissect the complex world of Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) and cybersecurity. They emphasize that SaMD is first and foremost a medical device and should be treated as such from the very beginning of the development process. The conversation highlights the most common mistakes companies make, like treating security as an afterthought and jumping straight into coding without a solid architectural plan.Mohamad Foustok introduces the concept of "zero trust" and the critical importance of designing for security across the entire product lifecycle, from initial concept to post-market surveillance. The discussion clarifies that cybersecurity is not limited to network-connected devices but applies to any medical device with a software function, regardless of its connectivity. They also touch on the historical context of FDA guidance, noting a significant shift in recent years that has raised the regulatory bar and put a greater emphasis on robust cybersecurity documentation.The guests provide actionable advice for MedTech professionals, stressing the value of a balanced approach that integrates security and functionality from day one. They explain that a well-thought-out process, though seemingly slower at the outset, ultimately saves time and resources by preventing costly and time-consuming redesigns later on. This episode serves as a vital guide for anyone looking to build a secure and compliant medical device in today's evolving regulatory landscape.Key Timestamps[01:50] Common pitfalls in developing SaMD, including overlooking regulatory guidance like IEC 62304.[03:20] The critical mistake of treating cybersecurity as an afterthought in product development.[05:00] Who cybersecurity applies to beyond software, including patients, manufacturers, and supply chains.[06:30] The FDA's stance on cybersecurity for any device with a software function, even if not network-connected.[08:00] A discussion on "reasonable assurance of cybersecurity" and what it means for manufacturers.[10:00] The "zero trust" principle and why you should never assume a network is secure.[14:00] How hospitals and other stakeholders are demanding more rigorous cybersecurity standards.[15:40] The ideal process for a "security-first" development lifecycle.[21:00] Why rushing development without a proper architecture can lead to significant delays and cost overruns.[23:00] A brief history of FDA's cybersecurity guidance and the major shift in 2023.Quotes"Software as a medical device ultimately is a medical device, and so you want to be developing it from the get-go with that mindset." — Jose Bohorquez"Security can't be an afterthought. You have to consider security at the inception of your approach to a product." — Mohamed FustokTakeawaysA "Security-First" Mindset is Essential: Integrate cybersecurity from the initial architectural phase of your project. This proactive approach saves significant time and money by avoiding costly redesigns and delays later in the development process or after an FDA submission.Cybersecurity is for All Software-Driven Devices: Don't assume that only cloud-connected devices need cybersecurity documentation. The FDA requires documentation for any device with a software function, including embedded systems and programmable logic, even if it's not connected to a network.Regulatory Compliance is a Process, Not a...

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Wie können Hersteller proaktiv auf den CRA reagieren?

er standards bedeutung unternehmen pub hersteller einkauf wie k komponenten cra reagieren listen notes cybersicherheit iec proaktiv cyber resilience act

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2025 23:23

Podcast: OT Security Made SimpleEpisode: Wie können Hersteller proaktiv auf den CRA reagieren?Pub date: 2025-09-23Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationDr. André Egners, verantwortlich für die Sicherheitsstrategie bei Landis+Gyr und in verschiedenen Standardisierungsgremien tätig, spricht über Cybersicherheit in Smart Metern und die Bedeutung des Cyber Resilience Act. Er erläutert, wie er die Sicherheitslevel des IEC 62443 Standards anwendet und wie Unternehmen beim Einkauf von Komponenten mehr Cybersicherheit einfordern können. The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Klaus Mochalski, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

S5E4: Independent Electrician Contractors of Utah

The Sounding Board

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 24, 2025 10:01

Today we talk about the IEC of utah and WHY it is an AMAZING resource to school counselors helping kids figure out the path they want to take as they move into post secondary education. https://ieci.org/ utschoolcounselor.org (http://www.utschoolcounselor.org/) Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/utschoolcounselor) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/utschoolcounselor/)] Send us your questions and ideas at thesoundingboard@utschoolcounselor.org (mailto:naathan.webb@utschoolcounselor.org) and if you like our podcast please rate and review our show - it helps other counselors to find us! USCA members also receive a bi-monthly newsletter to stay up to date on current Utah school counseling news, events, and issues.

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Wie können Hersteller proaktiv auf den CRA reagieren?

OT Security Made Simple Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 23, 2025 23:23

Dr. André Egners, verantwortlich für die Sicherheitsstrategie bei Landis+Gyr und in verschiedenen Standardisierungsgremien tätig, spricht über Cybersicherheit in Smart Metern und die Bedeutung des Cyber Resilience Act. Er erläutert, wie er die Sicherheitslevel des IEC 62443 Standards anwendet und wie Unternehmen beim Einkauf von Komponenten mehr Cybersicherheit einfordern können.

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Quantum technology standards

The Standards Show

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 22, 2025 46:14

Quantum technology uses physics to achieve what today's tech can't - like unhackable communications and computers beyond supercomputers. It could reshape daily life with safer banking, better medicines, smarter climate tracking and faster supply chains.Recognizing this, the UN named 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, marking its shift from labs to real-world impact. To ensure global success, standards bodies like BSI, IEC, and ISO are working to make systems secure, trusted, and interoperable.In this episode, Matthew speaks to IBM's Tony Holland and BSI's Gavin Jones about quantum technology standards. Together, they take us on a journey in three parts: starting with the big picture of what quantum is and why global standards matter; moving to the UK's role and the importance of mirror committees; and finally looking ahead to the UK's strategy, the progress so far, and what's coming next.And because it's The Standards Show, Tony and Gavin also reflect on their own standards journeys - what motivated them to get involved, and what continues to inspire their involvement today.Find out more about the issues raised in this episodeISO/IEC JTC3 – Quantum technologiesICT/4 – Quantum technologiesISO/IEC 4879 – Quantum computing – vocabulary Get involved with standardsGet in touch with The Standards Showeducation@bsigroup.comsend a voice messageFind and follow on social mediaX @StandardsShowInstagram @thestandardsshowLinkedIn | The Standards Show

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Eth maitin d'Aran 18/09/2025

Eth maitin d'Aran

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 18, 2025 60:00

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Have your say on E-voting debate in Western Cape

The Morning Review with Lester Kiewit Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2025 13:14 Transcription Available

Provincial Electoral Officer Michael Hendrickse spoke to Clarence Ford on Western Cape participation in the e-voting debate. Views and News with Clarence Ford is the mid-morning show on CapeTalk. This 3-hour long programme shares and reflects a broad array of perspectives. It is inspirational, passionate and positive. Host Clarence Ford’s gentle curiosity and dapper demeanour leave listeners feeling motivated and empowered. Known for his love of jazz and golf, Clarrie covers a range of themes including relationships, heritage and philosophy. Popular segments include Barbs’ Wire at 9:30am (Mon-Thurs) and The Naked Scientist at 9:30 on Fridays. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Views & News with Clarence Ford Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays between 09:00 and 12:00 (SA Time) to Views and News with Clarence Ford broadcast on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/erjiQj2 or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/BdpaXRn Subscribe to the CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/sbvVZD5 Follow us on social media: CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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IO-Link: What Is It, When To Use It, and How It Works (P246)

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 11, 2025 72:59 Transcription Available

Shawn Tierney meets up with Michael Bowne of PI to learn what IO-Link is, how it works, and when to use it in this episode of The Automation Podcast. For any links related to this episode, check out the “Show Notes” located below the video. Watch The Automation Podcast from The Automation Blog: Listen to The Automation Podcast from The Automation Blog: The Automation Podcast, Episode 246 Show Notes: To learn about our online and in-person training courses please visit TheAutomationSchool.com. Read the transcript on The Automation Blog: (automatically generated) Shawn Tierney (Host): Thank you for tuning back in to the automation podcast. My name is Shawn Tierney from Insights in Automation. And this week on the show, we have a special guest, somebody who hasn’t been on in four years. We have Michael Bone from PI. They’re the folks who manage technologies like PROFINET and IO Link. And Michael’s come on this week to talk specifically about IO Link. We’re gonna talk about what it is. We’re gonna talk about when you should use it, and we’re gonna talk about the technical details of IO Link, like, all the things, like, engineering minds like to know about. So I think you guys are gonna enjoy this. It took about two to three hours to edit this one, and I really enjoyed going back through it. You know, we recorded it, I think, four weeks ago. So I hadn’t seen it in four weeks, but I really did enjoy it. I really think you guys will enjoy it too. And that brings up another point. Organizations like PI and ISA and other organizations, they’re not vendors. They don’t sell stuff. Right? And so this episode is not sponsored by a vendor. And, you know, as I was going through it yesterday, I was like, you know, there’s a lot of great slides in here. I wanna share it with the public. So I’ve decided to sponsor this episode myself, and I’ll use this as an opportunity to tell you a little bit about my company and the automation blog, the automation school, and the content I have planned to release this fall, including content on these products right here, all focused on IO Link. And I just actually did a live stream with these, products in front of me. I’ll be doing more tomorrow, and I’ll be adding lessons to my, courses as well on these products. So in any case, but before we get to that, let’s go ahead and jump right into the show and hear from Michael and learn all about IO Link. I wanna welcome back Michael to the show. It has been four years. He was last on in podcast 76, back in September 2021. So just going on four years. Michael, thank you for coming back on the show. If you could, a lot of people may not remember four years ago. Mhmm. So before we jump into your presentation, which which I am so excited about talking about IO Link again. But before we jump into that, could you please tell me a little bit about yourself and a little Michael Bowne (PI): bit about PI? Yeah. Sure. First of all, my pleasure, to be back on on the podcast. It was a lot, a lot of fun. I remember that back in in 2021, and, I’m glad to be be back doing it again. I started with PI North America in 2011 as the technical marketing director. And since 2016, I’ve been the executive director running the show and chairman of the board since last year. I, have the, let’s say, pleasure to serve as the deputy chairman of PI on a global scale since 2015, and I come from a prior to working for PI, I worked for a sensor manufacturer who had some interfaces on there that that brought me an introduct to to Profibus and Profinet. And before that, I studied, physics and and math at at Penn State University. Just, really quick for those. I’m I’m sure many of you are familiar with with PI, but, it was started in the late eighties. Half a dozen companies and universities got together, and they wrote the PROFIBUS spec, and that evolved into the into into PROFIBUS DP and PROFIBUS PA for process automation in the early two thousands. PROFINET came under the umbrella. And the reason I bring all this up is because there are some newer technologies under our umbrella that I I think the audience might wanna know about. Of course, EyeLink is is the one that we’ll talk about today, and that was in 02/2009. But there are some others like Umlocks, which is a location tracking standard. There’s one called MTP, module type package, NOAA, NAMR open architecture, also under our umbrella. And, basically, what we do is promote, maintain, write the specs, turn them into standards, and the work on those specs is done in working groups, which are staffed by volunteers, engineers from member companies. They donate their time to to develop the specs, for these technologies we have under our umbrella. And we’re a little bit unique in that we’re decentralized. So we have competence centers and test labs and training centers located throughout the world. It’s not all just in one headquarter kind of place, and they’re all independent. But they have a contract or quality of services agreement with PI that says, hey. If you have a question about the technologies, go to a competent center. If you want further training, go to a training center. If you want to to test the device, go to a test lab. And then they are all working with regional PI associations of which we PI North America is one of them. We were founded in 1994 by a guy by the name of Mike Bryant. At that time, we were called Probibus Trade Organization. And we are the and now I didn’t come up with this this name. We are the North American Rio League. This is a an IO Link designation, a regional IO Link interest group, which means that we have a a separate contract and and quality of services agreement with the IO Link community to to promote and and work with members, specifically for IO Link here in in North America. And we’re nonprofit, member supported. I got nothing. So you’re talking about products and and and stuff at the beginning. I got nothing to sell today. We’re we’re working solely on on technology. Shawn Tierney (Host): You know, I do wanna throw out there, though, you have a great update every month about all the new products that fall in the buckets of IO Link, PROFINET, PROFIBUS, and a lot of those new products across our IO Link. So while they may not have products of their own, they do keep the, industry up to date on who’s joining up and signing up, for these new these you know, the jump on board and release new products that, that, you know, meet these specifications. And you know what? Maybe you’re not using PROFINET because you’re using brand x or y. You still probably use an IO Link. So Oh, that’s for sure. Very interesting very interesting updates that you publish every month and, as a blog. And, I know when I was doing the news for a couple years, I would always, go to your site to look for new updates. Michael Bowne (PI): Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I got a slide on that at the end, but the the you’re referring to the, the PROFINews. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yes. The PROFINews. Yeah. Michael Bowne (PI): Yeah. That’s a that’s that’s been a baby and a labor of love, for a while now. And and, oh, man, it’s it’s it’s incredible because every month, the most when we track this kind of stuff, obviously, the most popular article is the new products. Well, because that’s what, right, that’s what people want is the stuff they can buy, the stuff they can use. Yeah. Yeah. That’s and we got another one coming out next week, and every month, we we push that out, and it’s always half a dozen or a dozen new products, half of which are are IO Link. I mean, it’s just growing like crazy. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. And you guys have had some good articles. I think you had a great series, and I’m now I’m stretching it. So stretching the old memory here. I thought you had a great series on on, MTP, which I really enjoyed. Did did I remember that correctly? Michael Bowne (PI): Yeah. We we try and, you know, we try and get some editorial content in there. It’s it calls it falls into, like, three main buckets. What’s new products? What are new trainings and events that are coming up? And then and then some editorial content. I think I think what we’re driving at is I think we need to do maybe an MTP podcast here at some point in the down the road. Shawn Tierney (Host): Probably. Yeah. Down the road. Definitely. Definitely. I I’m still you know, I still have a very casual understanding of it. But, let me throw it back to you because I kinda jumped in and interrupted your your your, update. Michael Bowne (PI): No. It’s good. It saves it saves us at the end when when that slide, we can just just jump over it. Now we’ve we’ve got it covered, and it’s and it’s an and it’s an important one. But you kinda you kinda gave me a nice lead into the to the next one, which talks about, the Ireland community. And I’ll start from the bottom, work my way up as being fieldbus independent. Shawn Tierney (Host): I just wanna break in here for a moment and thank you folks in the audience who’ve signed up for my membership program. Really, really appreciate you all. Eighteen months ago, after reviewing ten plus years of being on YouTube, you know, it was pretty obvious that there’s no real revenue on YouTube. I mean, it comes in at maybe 1% of my monthly expenses. And so that ad revenue there is just not something to rely on going forward because it’s not something that’s been reliable in the past. And so I set up the membership program both on YouTube and at the automationblog.com. And I wanna thank all of you who signed up. I, we have a $5 tier, which I know most people sign up at, and then we have a couple other higher tiers. And so I just wanted to thank you all for doing that. You are actually the membership program’s probably 3% of my monthly, revenue. And so that’s, you know, one or two times more, than, what the YouTube revenue was. So thank you all for that. And I hope that, some of you who are not part of the membership program will consider becoming a member, supporting my work so I can do videos that are not always sponsored videos. Now I love sponsored videos. I love it when a vendor sends me a piece of hardware and then sits down with me and teach me how to use it so I can create a video ad free and share with you on how to use that product, or maybe they just come on the podcast and sponsor it to make it ad free so we can tell their story about their product or service. And I I will continue to do that going forward, but I would really also like to do more audience generated type of, content. So content where you generate the idea and say, Shawn, why don’t you try this? Or, Shawn, why don’t you do this? And a lot of those topics that the audience wants to see, they’re not necessarily topics that the vendor wants to promote with advertising dollars. Okay? And so that’s the whole purpose of the, membership program. Like I said, right now, it’s around 3% of my monthly income comes from and I’m talking about the business income, not my personal income, the business income. 3% of what the business needs to, to move forward and pay its bills every month. But, still, I that that, you know, so many of you have decided to jump in and support me. I just wanted to stop and say thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. And if you’re not part of the membership program and you’re doing financially well, please consider if you enjoy. This is episode two forty six of the automation podcast. Every episode has been free. The audio has been free for all 246 of them. And most of those episodes I funded myself just by well, you can understand how you fund something when you don’t have the income coming in. But in any case, if you enjoy it, please consider becoming a member, and we can branch out and do other things together. And with that, let’s go ahead and jump back into this week’s episode and learn more about IO Link. Michael Bowne (PI): So like you said, yeah. I mean, organizationally, the IO Link community came to PI in 2009 and organizationally under PI because we have the infrastructure for working groups and and IP policies and contracts and things like that. But the IO Link community has their own steering committee, and from the from the outset and from every IO Link event that we do and everything that we do is is independent of, of any Profibus or Profinet stuff. And we try really, really hard to maintain that independence, no matter what vendor you’re using. And there, at this point, we’ve got 500 companies in the IO Link community, and it’s really just growing by by leaps and bounds. So we kinda track this stuff by nodes and all the IO Link companies. They send their node count to an independent auditor, collects the counts, and gives us back an an an anonymous total. So we don’t know where or who is selling them, but we get the total. And you can just see this this hockey stick exponential growth. Particularly in 2023, there was some supply chain over purchasing that that went on. I mean, that’s like we’re looking at a a growth rate of 89% there, which is obviously unsustainable. But still, last year, 9,700,000 nodes were added. Again, because it’s field bus independent, it really has no competitor. And that’s what’s kinda cool about IO Link. I mean, you wanna do and and you don’t need to choose a field bus and therefore get IO Link. You can use any field bus or industrial container protocol, and IO Link works with it. Shawn Tierney (Host): You know, I wanna just, mention for the audio listeners. If we go back to 2012, it looks like we’re probably at the 1,000,000 mark or below it. And as you go to, you know, 2022, you look like you’re 35,700,000. Is that 2022 or 2023? Michael Bowne (PI): Yeah. That’s the 2022. Exactly. 35,700,000.0. Yeah. Shawn Tierney (Host): And then at, the end of twenty twenty three, we’re at 51.6. So you talked about that, you know, overbuying. And then at the end of 2024, we’re at 61,300,000.0. So you can just see from, you know, 2022 to, 2024, you went from 35 to 61. So the adoption, like you said, it’s a hockey stick. The adoption has really picked up. And I think you you hit the nail on the head because it is fieldbus independent. It’s a way to just get more information out of our devices, like sensors and photo eyes, you know, and it’s just you know? I mean, though, these chipsets that come in these, devices now are just amazing. Michael Bowne (PI): And that’s what, I mean, that’s what the whole point of this is. You’re you’re not gonna put a $5 ethernet chip, like, enter $5 ethernet interface on a $15 proximity sensor. But computing and memory has gotten really, really small and really, really cheap that it’s on just about everything. And so this proximity sensor not only can tell you if, like, for example, let’s say it’s on a conveyor belt. It cannot only tell you if the box is there or not, but it can tell you how many blue boxes would buy or how many red boxes would buy or if the box that’s going by is off kilter or or misaligned or something like that. But how do you get that data out in in inexpensively, and here we are. IO Link is is the way to do it. Shawn Tierney (Host): I’m sad to see a lot of these sensors too come with humidity, temperature, and all these other things should be like, really? I can get that out of my Michael Bowne (PI): photo eye. But yeah. Multivariable. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You know, traditionally, with an analog interface, how did you get that? You couldn’t get it. Mhmm. But now with a digital interface, which is what we’re talking about, digitalization in the last meter, now you can get that informate that data, that information, and do some pretty cool stuff with it. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yes. You can. Yeah. I’ll talk Michael Bowne (PI): a little bit about the architecture a little bit here to kind of get a little bit into the technical side of things about how IO Link works, but it they’re kind of some main devices, and that’s the IO Link masters and the IO Link devices. And these IO Link masters are available for we have here 16 different industrial Ethernet or field bus systems. 21 manufacturers offer central PLC, like an IO Link master built into the backplane of the PLC if you so desired. And the number of devices that so that hockey stick we showed before is just exploding. I mean, we’ve got 60 something million sold, and we have tens of thousands of unique IO Link devices from hundreds of different device manufacturers that have implemented this interface. And for those that if there’s anybody on the podcast that wants to do this and add this to their sensors, there are a number of different companies that help with, product design, either with the chips, the transceivers, the software stacks, and then a number of companies that help provide technical support in order to do that. So an IO Link system kind of is made up of four parts. Like I said, you have the IO Link master. That’s the gateway between the IO Link devices, the IO Link interface, and the higher level communication system, such as the fieldbus or the in industrial Ethernet protocol or backplane. You have the devices. This is the exciting part. Your sensors, your switch gears, your valves, your signal lamps, maybe some simple actuators, whatever the case may be. You’ve got a IO Link cable, just a three wire unshielded, super simple connection between the master and the devices. And then every device has an IODD or IO Link device description file, and I’ll explain how that gets used to engineer and parameterize the IO Link system and the and the devices. And what this kind of enables you know, traditionally, communication only reached the IO level. You had connection between the PLCs and the and the the the IO, and then it kinda stopped there because all those sensors and actuators were not accessible. They were analog, and you got your one process data. You brought process signal, and that’s where it ended. But with IO Link, what we do is we enable that communication bidirectional, cyclic and acyclic, and that’s the cool part, all the way from higher level systems, not only to the PLC or especially from the PLC, but down all the way down to the simple sensors and actuators, which are now accessible. And you kinda touched on this before where these chipsets have gotten really, really smart and really, really powerful. And it’s not that the it’s not that any of these use cases that are that are being solved with IO Link that none of them are new. What’s new is the ease with which they can be solved. So because you can get all this extra data out, things like OEE, showing things like downtime tracking, track and trace, predictive maintenance, for example, remote monitoring, recipe management, SPC, all these things. It’s not that these use cases are now being solved. The you know, we’ve we’ve been doing this for a long, long time. It’s just the ease with which because because it’s a standard and because all this stuff is standardized in how it gets from the the the device to the master and upwards to the controller, it just makes it easier. If you spend all your effort trying to gather and collect and sanitize the data because every device is different and, you know, that’s just that’s just a mess, and the ROI disappears really fast on any kind of project to do that. But if we have a standard on how to do that, then we make it very, very easy to do, and everything can come in, quite nicely. And and and it just and it just works a whole lot easier. You start getting access to that data. And so what we’re starting to see is connections being made. You know, you talk about the the flattening of the traditional automation hierarchy where now not only is that IO block or that sensor connected to a to a PLC, but it’s got some extra data. Like you said, like, this little photo I might have a a a temperature or a a moisture, you know, sensor also in there, just because it’s part of the the chipset. But the PLC don’t care about that. He just wants to know about the, you know, the information from the photo eye. So what do you do with all this extra beautiful information that isn’t necessarily processed data? Well, maybe the MES wants to know about that. So how do you get that? And in a running factory, in a brownfield environment, rule number one is don’t touch the running PLC. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. Michael Bowne (PI): And rule number two is see rule number one. That thing is running, and any minute of downtime costs more than any one thing on the on the factory floor. Shawn Tierney (Host): Before we go on, I did wanna break in here and tell you a little bit about my website, theautomationschool.com, where I do my online training. I also do in person training. And you probably don’t know that that all started back in 2014 with a Kickstarter I ran for my first PLC basics course. At the time, it was called microprogrammable controller basics, and I ended up changing it just the PLC basics. But in any case, since then, I’ve had added a dozen courses on a various number of topics, and you’ll find them all at the automationschool.com. But what I really wanted to talk to you about is why. Why did I do that? Well, I had spent twenty five years as a certified authorized Rockwell Automation distributor specialist covering PLCs, HMIs, SCADA, MES, and other stuff too. Right? And I knew from visiting, customers in the plant every single workday, almost every workday, that there was a real need for affordable training. So the first thing is, you know, large companies have large expensive, large paychecks, and lots of overhead, so they gotta charge a lot. Right? And so that was a problem because a lot of the people I was working with, you know, the controls engineers, automation engineers, high end electricians and technicians, they had to fund their training themselves. Their company was sort of like, no. We trained this guy back in the nineties, and then he will have to get a better job. So we’re not spending money on training. And so all these people were having to train themselves, and it was unaffordable to either, you know, buy the the, vendors courses. Or even if the the company did have training dollars, it was unaffordable to send them away for a week to a $3,000 course somewhere halfway across the country, probably $3,000 worth of travel and hotels too. Right? And then they go where without one of their smartest guys, right, one of their best people, because you you that’s usually who you’re gonna train and and uplift through the through the organization. Either people are doing good on the lower level, you wanna bring them up and train them on automation. And so that’s why I started the the, automationschool.com because of the the try to provide I knew the the courses would never be Hollywood quality. I mean, this isn’t Hollywood quality. Right? But I knew it could be helpful and and, you know, be affordable by just filming them in my garage. Right? And, you know, picking up some used equipment and putting together the episodes. And the site has grown so much. We have thousands of, students from over a 150 countries. We have hundreds of, vendors we work with. But the other thing I did is, is made up by one’s own forever. Right? So more like an ebook or an audiobook or an m p three album. Right? And the reason I did that and I understand why the vendors don’t do that because they’re like, well, they’ll sign up one guy in the I and e shop, and he’ll share his password for everybody. You know, that could happen. Right? People could rob a bank too. But I’m like, you know, most people, when they buy a course and I saw this. I was on an independent platform for a while, and on that platform, they showed you how the progress of every student. Most people buy the course well before they’re ready to take it. And I’m like, I’m not gonna charge people a monthly fee or only give them access to to a short window if, you know, they have good intentions now, but it takes them a while to actually free up their schedule to get into the course and take it. So that’s why my courses are buy one’s own forever. And it can you know, as they grow, the price goes up because I’m adding more and more content, and I do split them out and make cheaper versions over time. But, those people who buy in early, they get the like, my s seven course. Like, I think it originally came out at 40 or $50, and now it’s $200 because I’ve added so much to it over the years. But in any case, same with ControlLogix and CompactLogix. And then the other thing too is I want them to be able to take it more than once. Right? So if you take a let’s say you take a ControlLogix course. Right? You don’t use it for a couple years, you probably gonna have to take it again. And I don’t want you to feel like you have to pay a monthly fee to do that. It’s like an ebook or an m p three album. You bought it. You bought access to it, I guess I should say, and now it’s yours. Right? And the other thing too is I support my students personally. Okay? So I check the website every day for questions, every work day. I should say, you know, I do take Sundays off. So in any case, if you’re if it’s a work day, though, and I’m working, I’m not on vacation or traveling for business, I’m up there. I’m answering questions. And I should say, even when I’m traveling on business, I’m I’m on there answering questions. So although if I don’t have any hardware, there’s some questions you can’t ask. Right? I guess I should have said some questions you can’t answer. But in any case, I just wanted to share that with you. Theautomationschool.com, a high quality online courses, five star rated, buy once, own forever, and guess what? I’m updating all the PLC courses, and if you already own or buy one of the existing PLC courses, you not only get the updated lessons that get added to that course, you get the new course completely free. So I’m not gonna charge you for just an updated version of a class on the same core on the same product. Right? That would be kinda silly in my opinion. So, I hope you guys appreciate that. Again, if you didn’t know any of this, if you have any questions, if you go over to the automationschool.com, at the very top of the site, you’ll see links to contact me, set up a meeting, leave me a voice mail, fill out a form. You know, I have many ways you can get in touch with me. And if you have multiple people you wanna sign up, I do have multiple seat discounts starting at three seats. And, I do actually work with a number of Fortune 500 companies who, you know, enroll maybe 10 people at a time to get that discount. And you know what? Unlike the big vendors, if somebody you sign somebody up and they all take the courses, I’ll let you replace that person for free of charge. You don’t have to pay anything extra. If you sign up Joe and he decides to quit or leave or not to learn, you can put Bob in his place. That’s not a problem. Now I have said some situations where the same spot kept getting replaced or replaced or replaced. At some point, I do charge a maintenance fee to to switch the names out. And then, hey. Look. If Joe leaves and he took, you know, two out of three courses, I’ll prorate refilling that seat with the new person. Right? So whatever percentage of the lessons he took versus the total number of lessons, I’ll prorate it. So, you know, we’ve had number of cases where somebody goes through half of the content then leaves, so we can reset that seat for half price. And I that’s something you won’t find, any major vendors doing as well. So if you have any questions about that, reach out to me over at the automation school dot com. And with that said, let’s jump right back into this week’s episode of the automation podcast. Michael Bowne (PI): In a brownfield installation, what we’re seeing these these cool little edge gateways, And what they’ll do is they’ll grab the bus, they’ll collect some data, and pump it out the other side via, you know, maybe an IT protocol that that the IT guys wanna know about or, you know, like an MQTT or an OPC UA. Of course, in a in a greenfield, in a new installation where you’ve got a brand new PLC, yeah, get the data there. That guy has all the brains, has all the all the information in one ply in all in one place, so get it from the PLC. But in Brownfield, I the edge gateways, even some IO Link masters are being put on the market that have not only an industrial Ethernet interface, you know, just on one port, on the same port, industrial Ethernet interface for control, but that interface will also speak like a higher level IT protocol like an MQTT or an OPC UA, so you can get it even from the IO Link master that data is is accessible. So the different ways to get it, and, and that’s kind of the whole point is is getting that data from the sensors to the to the master and then further upwards. Shawn Tierney (Host): We actually covered a product on the show that had two ports. It had one for your fieldbus Michael Bowne (PI): Yeah. And then it Shawn Tierney (Host): had a separate one for your IT or your IOT or your MQTT, which I thought was so inventive too because now the control system gets its data, and it’s under control. But reporting wise, you know, that’s kind of the best of both both worlds. You don’t have to have two sensors. You can send it to data both ways. And, yeah, just it’s the way you can do with these things and, you know, a lot of the sensors you probably have out there, I’ve noticed that some vendors, every sensor they sell is IO Link. So Yeah. You may already have it installed and not know it because the price difference to add it to some products. Once you get up to the fanciest sensors, of course, not the simplest sensors, but once you get up to the fanciest sensors, it’s it’s, you know, there’s a lot of horsepower in that chipset. So, you know, they can add IO Link for for pennies on the dollar. So very interesting stuff, though. Michael Bowne (PI): Yeah. That’s that’s a good point. And and, you know, of course, we could spend all day talking about IT, OT, and the segmentation of networks and all who’s who owns the IP addresses. And we I mean, that’s a whole separate topic. But in cases like that, yeah, it’s cool. You got a separate port. IT can do what they want on their one port. And if but, hey, don’t touch me in the control realm because Mhmm. This is my this is my realm. And and you bring up another good point, and that’s kind of there’s a I don’t I don’t wanna say that, you know, there’s there isn’t, like, a thick black line between, okay, this sensor is simple, therefore, should have IO link, or this sensor is complex, therefore, should have its own industrial Ethernet, interface. There’s almost a little bit of a gray area, but you’re right. I mean Mhmm. We kinda leave it up to the vendors to decide. Hey. My thing needs the horsepower that and it’s so complex that I need something like, like, an industrial Ethernet protocol. But, oh, you know what? This other central line is tailored for low cost, and so, therefore, I’m gonna put IO Link on it. But that’s, you know, that’s up to them to to decide. So when we talk about IO Link in terms of benefits, we kinda like to make the analogy with USB because everybody knows USB. You got your USB cable. You plug it into your computer on one end. On the other end, you plug it into your you know, you plug your mouse in or you plug your keyboard in, and you plug your key your printer in. Automatically, it it uses the same cable. It’s always the same. Everything everybody’s using that interface, and we kinda see the same thing with IO Link where it’s just a unified, unshielded three wire sensor cable, and it can use be used with all IO Link devices. Up until now, you know, if you had smart devices, right, memory and computing power is smaller and cheaper. Up until now, to get that extra information out, you would need multiple cables. The wiring is time consuming. It’s expensive. They’re large, costly to to install and maintain. But But with iolink, you just you just plug it in. It’s a simple m 12 plug, and then you don’t have all these spare parts of different cable types. It’s just one cable and, easy to maintain, thin, flexible. I’ve got a I’ve got an example here I’d like to highlight, and I’ll try and talk through it for those that are that are listening instead of instead of viewing. This is an example of 256 IOs via 16 fieldbus modules. So, like, fieldbus like remote IOs or whatever the case may be. So we’re connecting them to a PLC out in the field. And to do that, we would need 16 fieldbus modules in order to do that. These are just let’s let’s call them simple DI, you know, digital input proximity sensors. Mhmm. Shawn Tierney (Host): Mhmm. Michael Bowne (PI): With IO Link, we can do that via just one fieldbus module. So that’s just one IP address or one IO Link master. So already you’re cutting out 15 of those more expensive devices. And then we use what are called so called IO Link hubs, which bring those DI signals, put it all on one IO Link connection, put it into IO Link master, and send it out the other side. And with that, we can connect if you imagine these 272 IOs as shown here via just one fieldbus module. So it’s showing just huge, huge, huge savings simply on cost alone, due to the wiring. And, that that one cable, it fits all sensor types. So simple sensors, like a proximity sensor all the way up to complex devices like pressure, temperature, signal lamps, and even simple actuators all use the same IO Link cable. Shawn Tierney (Host): So where an IO Link device would be giving you not just on or off, but a lot of other information and some of that analog information. If all you had was a dumb device, well, now I can put 16 of them or so, you know, some number of them together Mhmm. Bring them into a hub. And each since each device only has an on or off, where a regular IO Link device would have lots of other information, you can now just join them all together and say, okay. Here we go. Here’s inputs one through x. Michael Bowne (PI): It’s, almost like multiplexing, put it all together on one and then Mhmm. Pump it out the other side. Yeah. Shawn Tierney (Host): Perfect. Michael Bowne (PI): The other way we relate IO Link to USB is kind of in the the identification and parameterization. So if we look at how you plug your printer into your computer, you plug it in, and automatically, your computer says, oh, okay. I know that that’s a HP something something desk check printer and and okay. How do you wanna do you wanna do color or black and white? Do you wanna do full duplex? Do you wanna do back and white, back and front on on the printing? And the same is true for for IO Link. So you plug in that IO Link sensor into your IO Link master. It reads it. It says, hey. The dialing says, hey. This is who I am. This is my type. This is my serial number. Every device has a vendor ID and a device ID. And then the IO Link master goes up and gets the IODD file, and I’ll show that here in a little bit, and then you can start that parametrization. And it’s just like it’s just like a USB. It’s it’s, no special knowledge is required. You can format changes very, very easily. You can even do them on the fly, for example, with an HMI on the on the machine. And, the identification methods make sure that you don’t plug in a wrong device into an IO Nialink port, which could stop the machine. It’ll it’ll it’ll recognize that and prevent, incorrect connections. It allows you to exchange devices very easily of the same type or the the same same manufacturer, same same device. So just like USB, it it it kinda works in that way. And then the other way, it’s kind of like USBs in the diagnostics, and this is a really, really powerful part of IO Link. So when your printer says, I’m out of paper or I’m out of toner or there’s a paper jam, it sends that signal, standardized signal to the to the computer, to your computer, your PC, and you know exactly what what to do, how to fix your your printer, why your printer isn’t working the same as true for IO Link. We’ve standardized these diagnostics. So this is a, a photo eye saying, hey, under voltage or over temperature or the the window on the photo eye has gotten dirty, so signal quality is deteriorating. So we standardized all this, so that these diagnostics all come in the same way, and, you can, you know, fix any any problem as fast as possible to to to, minimize downtime. And in the case of things like signal quality, hey. The the the window’s getting dirty. This enables things like preventative maintenance. Oh, I know I’m going into a planned shutdown next week. Now’s the time to go out and clean those sensors kind of thing, because I know that they’re I know that the signal’s going is deteriorating. So some cool things like that, that wouldn’t be possible with a traditional analog signal, which we’re showing here. And it also makes really no sense. I mean, in this example, what we’re showing here is a generic this is a pre pressure sensor. You know, it does its measurement. It then does some amplification, and then to stabilize the signal, it does an a to d, puts it into a micro, which does some temperature compensation linearization. But then, traditionally, prior to IO Link, what you do is then do another data a to send it out via zero to 10 volts or four to 20 milliamps, whatever, into the into a, an a to d card on the backplane of the PLC, I mean, this is just this is just crazy. It’s it’s time consuming. It’s, the the signal is still susceptible to interference. The the analog inputs on the cards on the PLC are expensive. There’s manual calibration of the signal. But with IO Link, it just makes sense. You take that signal right from the micro, pump it out digitally via an IO Link inexpensive interface to your, to your IO. And, we use that unshielded three wire inexpensive cable, Shawn Tierney (Host): and Michael Bowne (PI): then you get all those parameters and diagnostics. And, really, that’s the point of using IO Link is all that extra data, all that extra information that that comes along with the the process data. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. And so those of you who are listening, I mean, what we saw there was to to shoot out a four to 20 milliamp signal or zero to 10 volt signal, it had to convert it from the digital value that was inside the device to analog, then I have to pump it out. And, you know, we always have to worry about noise and, you know, shielding and all that, you know, depending on the length of the run. And then in the PLC analog card, it’s converting it from analog back to digital, so you have that zero to 32,000 value or zero to 64,000, whatever your PLC does. And so IO Link does eliminate that. It eliminates the noise of your traditional analog. And I know I’ve met so many customers say we have no noise issues on our analog, and that’s great. But not everybody’s in that same boat. So you’re eliminating that d to a and then a to d, and that’s that’s you’re keeping everything digital. So you’re not only getting a cleaner, more accurate value from your device, you’re also getting all those additional pieces of information and the ability to be maybe configured to products. Some of these products need to be changed based on the type of product they’re sensing, you know, the type of fluid going through, the recipe that’s being drawn, the lighting, the colors. So all those different things, you you know, with a typical analog signal, you’re not gonna be able to send back and do a configuration to it. So, go ahead. Back to you, Michael. Michael Bowne (PI): No. You’re right. Exactly. We we have I I took this line out of this deck for the for, you know, for for brevity, but we show examples of of particularly food and bev, right, where you have batches, different I’m running a different batch. I’m running a different product. I need a different label on the on the bottle or whatever I’m running through the the the machine. You reconfigure that via the HMI. It sends all that stuff down to the sensors. Okay. Now I know I’m looking for I should be sensing this instead of this. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. It could be a clear bottle sensor, the clear bottle detector that the bottles change colors. So it’s has a different setting, or it could be background suppression depending on the color of the product. You need a different setting or a color sensor. Maybe you’re making different products and the different colors, and so, you know, all this is now configurable through your PLC, through your control system, through your HMI, which I just think is so cool. Michael Bowne (PI): Yeah. It’s it’s it’s super cool. Alright. Let’s get a little bit technical here. I think for some of the engineers, that might be nice. The IO Link signal and 24 volt power supply, like like we talked about before, it’s it’s an m 12 connector. So you’ve got five pins. Your pin one is your high, pin three is your low, and then pin four is your CQ line. That’s that’s where the IO Link digital signal lives. It’s serial. It’s bidirectional. It’s point to point. And then we also have on that same pin four, if you so desired, you could also parameterize your device via IO Link, set it all up, and then put it in what’s known as a CO mode or simple IO mode. And I’ll show that on the next slide too if maybe you’ve just got a digital IO, that you want a fast switching interface. So pins one and three are our power. Pins two and five are freely assignable. So for example, if you wanted to use that pin four for your IO Link signal and then separately have your own DI or DQ line, you could do that using a three wire, four wire, five wire cable. And then what’s cool also in IO Link and we’re starting to see this more and more is we call this port class b, same m 12 connector, same five pins, but pins two and five provide a separate power supply for additional power because and this is cool. We’re starting to see more and more IO link just, like, simple actuators Mhmm. On the market. And that’s really neat. So let’s say you’ve got some simple linear actuator, not not a complex, you know, driver, you know, or motor or something like that, but a a simple linear actuator. You can drive that via IO Link if you just gotta move something really, you know, maybe maybe even within connected to the same ports, on the master as some other sensors, and so you can do that logic in the master itself, you know, simple simple stuff like that. But that’s also possible with IO Link where you can drive it, not just sense it, but also actuate it with with IO Link. So that’s that’s some cool stuff that’s coming down the line. Shawn Tierney (Host): You know, and I found that all the IO Link devices I had here, they came with the SIO mode already set up. So I was able to use the photo eyes and the proxies and all the other devices just as simple IO devices and without even touching the IO Link side of it, which I think is cool because, you know, in in many cases, you just need a photo eye to get up and running. Right? Michael Bowne (PI): Yeah. And that’s and that’s how they come out of the box. So out of the box, it’s in that CO mode. And I think you you kinda touched on this before. Maybe many customers have IO Link devices Yeah. On their machine. They don’t even know it Mhmm. Shawn Tierney (Host): Because they Michael Bowne (PI): took it out of the box. They needed that photo. They plugged it in and away they went. But there’s also that all all that extra stuff. If they wanted to, they could get down into the IO Link part of it. Mhmm. Maybe to reparameterize it, or what if you got to change, you still wanna use the CO mode. You just want that digital input. What if you wanna change the switching distance, for example, something like that? I don’t want it to switch at one meter. I want it to switch at two meters or whatever. So all that all that can be configured via IO Link. So on the if we if we talk about the the IO Link communication itself, there are three transmission speeds, comms one, two, and three. Comm one is 4.8 kilobits per second. COM two is 38.4 kilobits per second, and COM three is 230.4 kilobits per second. IO Link masters support all three comm modes, but devices are free to choose based on what they’re sending. If it’s temperature, maybe you don’t need COM three because that’s changing more slowly than something like like like we’re talking about a proximity sensor, which may want to send that a little bit more quickly and uses that that COM three mode. Many, many devices use COM three mode because still two hundred two hundred thirty kilobits per second, that’s, you know, that’s not gonna that’s not gonna kill you. And then a typical cycle time, because this is the question we get all the time, is what kind of cycle time can be achieved? It’s about a millisecond at at com three. So if you’re, you know, trying to go submillisecond, you know, maybe IO Link is not is not the solution at that point. But for many, many applications, that one millisecond cycle time can can, can accomplish whatever they need to. And then what’s cool is that from the EyeLink master’s perspective, it’ll have eight or 16 sensors connected to it. Each device can be set independently. So on this port this device, I’m talking at this comm rate and this cycle time. This other port number two, I’m speaking at a different transmission speed and a different cycle time and so on and so forth, you know, so that you’re not sending data unnecessarily that is simply just being sent for the purposes of being sent. And that’s and that’s pretty cool. Shawn Tierney (Host): And a lot of times, you don’t because you’re not reading a digital on off, you don’t the speed, you’re you’re actually getting a value, and that value a lot of times your PLC is not gonna be running faster than a millisecond scan time. So if you’re getting your value updated, you know, faster than the PLC, then that’s a then then that’s really what you need. Do you know how fast is your PLC running? How fast can your program controller use that value? And, you know, I’d be hard pressed to see a lot of applications where they’re breaking that one millisecond update rate. The other thing too is just because we’re talking at the speed doesn’t mean the actual calculation is even possible in a millisecond. So, you know, temperature changes, things that that sensors there’s limit limitations to the physical world. You know? And, you know, I I don’t know if anybody’s ever said this to you before, Michael, but when I first saw the whole comm thing, I thought that was confusing because having grown up with PCs, I always thought of comp one, comp two, comp one group. Right? And these are really just bought what I would call from the old days, sewer rates. Right? Michael Bowne (PI): Yeah. Exactly. Shawn Tierney (Host): Exactly. Insight why why they is it just maybe because it was the standard started overseas or any idea why they went with CALM? Michael Bowne (PI): I’m not gonna lie to you. That’s the first time I’ve gotten that question. Shawn Tierney (Host): Really? Okay. Michael Bowne (PI): Why they’re called that yeah. Let’s just let’s just rewrite this. They call it BOD one, BOD two, BOD three. Shawn Tierney (Host): I know. It’s just so weird. But, anyways, sorry sorry, audience. I just have Michael Bowne (PI): That’s a good one. That’s a good one. Nope. I’ll take that one back. Alright. So IO Link data comes in a couple different flavors. You have your process data. That’s your bread and butter, what you’re using to run the run the factory. Transmitted cyclically in a Telegram, the the data size is defined by the device, and it can be up to 32 bytes for each device, both input and output. Along with that comes a value bit indicating whether the process data is valid or invalid, and this can be transmitted is transmitted cyclically with the the process data. And then you have things that happen acyclically. These would be device data like parameters, identification data, diagnostic information, and these happen on request of the IO Link master. Obviously, a lot of that happens during startup, but also can happen during runtime if, as shown here on the slide with the with the last case, events can be error messages. So the the, the device will set a flag. Hey. There’s a short circuit or so, and then the the master can pull that device for more information, more diagnostic information, based on that event flag that’s that’s set by the set by the device. And so, the the question we always get at this point is, how do I make this all work? How do I integrate this stuff into my into my plant? Shawn Tierney (Host): Before we go any further, I did wanna jump back and tell you about a service I’m doing that I don’t think I’ve talked about very much, and it’s comes in two different flavors. First of all, I’ve actually had some vendors and companies reach out to me and say, Shawn, I know you don’t wanna travel all around the country with all your equipment. Right? That’s not what you do, but we want you to come out and teach us something. Would you come out and do a lecture? We’ll set up our own equipment. And, can you come out and just run us through some of the products and teach us some of your knowledge, and you don’t have to worry about bringing all the equipment with you. And so that’s something I really don’t talk about much, but I do wanna tell you that if you’re looking for training and you need it on-site, of course, you do have to pay for my travel time. But if you do want me to come out for a day or two days or for a week and do training on any of the products I train online now. Now if you want me to come out and do training on a product I don’t already have a curriculum on, I can’t do it. The building the curriculum is where all of my costs is on the training. Right? I shouldn’t say that. The web service in in in the back end does cost something every month as well, but most of the time it goes into and that’s really what being self employed is it’s time. Right? Most of the time goes into build building the curriculum. So if you have a need for somebody like Shawn, we can’t do a webinar. We can’t do a Teams meeting. We we can’t do online training. We want you to come out. And, again, I just got a call on this yesterday. Yes. I can do that. As long as the curriculum I’m gonna teach you is something I already have existing. And, I’m not gonna hand out lab books. We can buy you lab books if you want. People sell great lab books for $80.90 dollars a pop. If you want lab books, I’d be more than happy to include that in the quote. But in any case, I that’s one thing I do. The other thing I’ve been doing with vendors is they’ve hired me to come out and interview them at their trade show. So, usually, what happens is somebody will sponsor a podcast for $5.99. They’ll come on. We’ll do the interview. I’ll edit it all up. I’ll put their links in. We’ll talk about the thumbnail, and then we’ll release it ad free. Right? And so that covers my cost of producing that episode roughly. Right? We just raised it from $4.99 to $5.99 because most of the shows were were actually upside down on, so we need to raise it a little bit to make sure we’re covering our cost. But in any case, sometimes vendors have, you know, they have their own trade show, and they may have all of their product specialists there. And they’re like, hey, Shawn. We would like to do six or seven interviews at the trade show. Would you come out and actually record them there? We’ll pay your flight. We’ll pay your hotel and your expenses to get there and back. And so that’s another thing I haven’t talked about much that I’m doing. I’m working with some, you know, top five vendors to do that, and I’ve done it in the past. And so I did wanna explain it to you if you’re a vendor listening or if you are, talking to your vendor, like, you should have Shawn come out and interview all your people. You have them all in one place. Let them know that they can contact me about doing that. Again, you can contact me at theautomationblog.com, LinkedIn, YouTube, theautomationschool.com, pretty much any way you want. You can write me snail mail if you want. But in any case, I do wanna share that, and we also have in person training. I think I’ve talked to you guys about this quite a bit. We do custom in person training for as little as two people, $900 a day up to four people. And so if you wanna get some people in here, we can actually do Allen Bradley and Siemens in two days back to back. One day Allen Bradley, one day Siemens. So if you wanna learn two PLCs in two days back to back now I do have somebody ask me, hey, Shawn. Where’s your schedule of upcoming courses? And back in my previous life of twenty five years, we were always trying to sign people up and then canceling, you know, events and classes because, we wouldn’t get enough people to meet the vendors minimum. So I don’t wanna do that. So I don’t have actually any dates now. I have been talking with doing a intensive POC boot camp, but, you know, I just got so much things going on in my life right now that I don’t think I could pull that together this fall. But in any case, if you need some training, you wanna send your people here, we can even start at, like, noontime and then end the final day at noontime so you can get your flights and travel and all that. We’re one hour away from Albany, New York, and that’s a great little airport to fly in and out of. Actually, I’m flying out of it in November. They’ll go to a trade show, to interview vendors, vendors, product people. But in any case, I just wanna break in. There’s something about my company. I don’t think I ever talked to you guys about much, and so I just wanted to insert it here since I’m sponsoring this episode and eating the cost to produce it. I wanted to share that with you. And now, I won’t be back until the end of the show, so please enjoy the rest of this episode. Send any feedback you have to me, and, we’ll talk to you at the end of the show. Michael Bowne (PI): And it kinda works like this. So you have your IO Link device, which has an IODD file, which we mentioned earlier, that gets ingested by a parameterization tool. The parameterization tool comes with the IO Link master. Could be a separate piece of software. In some cases, could be a web page built into the IO Link master itself. Depends on depends on the vendor. But then what happens after that, how that data goes from the IO Link master to the controller, the PLC, is fieldbus specific. So you have your own, fieldbus file, you know, GSD or EDS or ESI, whatever the case may be, which is ingested by the engineering tool of the of the PLC and kind of outside way outside the scope of of of IO Link. And so the EDS file, the GSD file, and and that is the that data then gets sent via fieldbus, and that’s the sum of all the IO Link device data from all the ports on the IO Link master, where that IO Link communication as as defined by the IODD file, configures the port for the master and for the devices. And so an IODD file is provided by the devices, and every device manufacturer must provide an IODD for their device. It can be downloaded from the IODD finder, which is a website, and, it it describes what the entire device does. It describes the process data length, the process data structure, the parameter the name of the parameters, what range to expect, the data types, the addresses of the parameters in the in the in the indexes and subindexes. It can talk about GUI information, pages on which a parameter shall be displayed, names of parameter pages, all this kind of stuff is in an IODD file. It’s a it’s a zip file where you have that IODD as an XML. So that’s how we format the file. So it’s it’s both and this is the key part, both machine readable and and human readable. It’s got a little picture of the device, picture of the manufacturer logo. And with your permission, maybe I can show the IODD finder. It’s, ioddfinder.io-link.com. Mhmm. Looks simple enough. Let’s say we wanna look at a I’m gonna type in something here. Max ref. Let’s pick this. So this is just a this is a reference design, not an actual product that that, an end user would employ in their in their factory, but a reference design of something that maybe a device manufacturer would use. And it’s shows the manufacturer name, the article name number, the product name, the device ID. All that stuff is ingested by the parameterization tool, which then uses that information to go up to this IODD finder and grab the IODD file shown here, which can be downloaded if you wanted to look at it yourself. But in the past few years, we implemented what’s called an IODD viewer, which is pretty cool, which takes that nice XML file and parses it. So in human readable form, if you wanted to compare quickly, hey. I’m an end user. I wanna compare the IODD file from device vendor a to device vendor b to kinda see what kind of features they have. You could do that all very easily, and that’s shown here in the IODD viewer. What’s really what’s really neat about this IODD finder is that it has two ways it it it gets accessed. That’s this website that I just showed here. So as in humans are are accessing it, but it’s also accessible via API. And we we track the the traffic to the Audi divider, and the vast, vast majority of the traffic comes via API. So these are IO Link masters that just had a device connected to them. Parameter is I’m sorry. Parameterization tool that has a you know, or connected to the IO Link master that had device connected them. They go up to the AudiD finder, and they pull down that IODD file for the device that was just connected so that now they they can be, configured. And that’s really, really cool stuff. So all these IODD files are in one spot, in one database up there for for viewing or via the IODD viewer or for access from any number of IO Link tools out there. Shawn Tierney (Host): So when we’re talking about API access, we’re talking about the tool we’re using to configure the master. So it could be a web page built into the master, or it could be a separate software program. Do I have that correct? Michael Bowne (PI): Yeah. Right. So the parameterization tool, yeah, is usually is usually a software package that’ll run on your computer connecting to your, IO Link master that parameterizes the IO Link master. Yeah. Shawn Tierney (Host): Excellent. Or Michael Bowne (PI): through the network somehow. Maybe through the network. Yeah. Goes out and grabs that IODD file from the IODD finder to, you know, to parameterize that port in that device. Shawn Tierney (Host): Which is excellent because in previous iterations of smart networks and smart devices, you always have to go searching a vendor’s website, and then people would get the wrong file, and then I would be in the field saying this is never gonna work because you get the wrong device file. If they can’t give you the right device file, you’ll never get it to work. You know? And so this is much better having the organization have everybody require everybody who has IO Link to put their IODD files in the one place so everybody can always find it. And so the software tools can find it automatically for you, which is just a huge a huge change versus what we went through in the nineties. Michael Bowne (PI): Exactly. We came on a CD or something or what I mean, God only knows. I’m gonna switch gears a little bit here, talk about two topics subtopics within the IO Link domain, and one of them is IO Link wireless. This is, what we call is bridging the gap. So it’s an IEC standard, six eleven thirty nine as of November 2023, Shawn Tierney (Host): and Michael Bowne (PI): it’s enabling connections that simply weren’t possible before for IO Link. And in an example here, we’re showing a a smart machine tool where the IO Link sensor is integrated into the chuck of the lathe. Now that guy is spinning at 6,000 RPMs. That connection simply couldn’t be possible couldn’t be done any other way than with IO Link wireless or, let’s say, independent movers. So you’ve seen these moving systems where you’ve got the either floating or on a on a rail the other track systems exactly. If you integrate the smarts of IO Link onto the movers themselves instead of using, SCARA or Delta robots to do the to I mean, that’s you’re saving huge amounts of cost Mhmm. That way if the if those guys can move on their own, and they use IO Link wireless to do that. Slip rings where certainly sending power, is is well known, but sometimes communication can be tricky via slip ring. Mhmm. Yeah. End of arm tooling, like robot robot end of arms where you have a you’re gonna change the tool at the end of the arm. It’s more lightweight, saving on on robot cost that way. Less fewer lighter robots can be used, but it’s it’s, it’s cool. It the architecture looks pretty much the same, where you have your field level, your IO, and instead of wired connections, it’s it’s simply a wireless connection. Is that wired? It’s it’s wireless. And and what’s different about IO Link Wireless is that it was built for industry. So I think in the past, people have been burned by wireless technologies that made some promises that didn’t maybe you know, they they couldn’t meet the the the the the rigorous environment and and requirements of of industry, but that was different. It was built for industry from the start. So it uses the two point two point four gig license free ISM band. And what we do is a is this frequency hopping so that we use the same IO link, you know, data structure. We do this frequency hopping, and it’s it’s a cycle of five milliseconds. So you’re not going to get that one millisecond time that you get via wired IO link. We do a five millisecond cycle time, and then it’s using this frequency hopping method. It’s basically cable grade, connection, 10 to the minus nine error probability. You can have hundreds of wireless devices in a machine, and it’s deterministic. It’s designed it is designed from the outside for both for control, of course, but, of course, also for for monitoring and maybe, like, a brownfield. You wanna you can’t get IO Link to a sensor or something that you can maybe use IO Link wireless to get access to some some hard to reach sensor. Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, you know, I thought that I think this is so

Cybersecurity in Medical Devices – What QA/RA Must Do Today

uk european union managing healthcare switzerland cybersecurity iso qa medical devices regulatory affairs iec

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 10, 2025 25:20

bersecurity in Medical Devices – A QA/RA Perspective Cybersecurity is often seen as an IT or engineering issue—but in reality, regulators and auditors turn to QA and Regulatory Affairs professionals for evidence. In this article (based on the podcast episode), we explore: How to prepare cybersecurity documentation for audits and inspections Building post-market processes for vulnerability handling and reporting Linking cybersecurity with standards (ISO 13485, ISO 14971, IEC 62304, ISO 27001…) Managing supplier and open-source component risks Implementing and maintaining an SBOM Key trends like the NIS2 Directive and the EU AI Act

Electoral commission candidates underwhelming

Breakfast with Refilwe Moloto

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 9, 2025 6:39 Transcription Available

John Maytham speaks to Lawson Naidoo, executive director of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) about the list of eight candidates put forward to fill three commissioner vacancies at the Independent Electoral Commission, given that the majority of them received some form of critique from the Chapter 9 panel who had interviewed ten nominees. Good Morning Cape Town with Lester Kiewit is a podcast of the CapeTalk breakfast show. This programme is your authentic Cape Town wake-up call. Good Morning Cape Town with Lester Kiewit is informative, enlightening and accessible. The team’s ability to spot & share relevant and unusual stories make the programme inclusive and thought-provoking. Don’t miss the popular World View feature at 7:45am daily. Listen out for #LesterInYourLounge which is an outside broadcast – from the home of a listener in a different part of Cape Town - on the first Wednesday of every month. This show introduces you to interesting Capetonians as well as their favourite communities, habits, local personalities and neighbourhood news. Thank you for listening to a podcast from Good Morning Cape Town with Lester Kiewit. Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays between 06:00 and 09:00 (SA Time) to Good Morning CapeTalk with Lester Kiewit broadcast on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/xGkqLbT or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/f9Eeb7i Subscribe to the CapeTalk Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/sbvVZD5 Follow us on social media CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Utility Safety Podcast - Deep Dive - Improving Rope Safety in Energized Environments

Utility Safety Podcast by Incident Prevention Magazine

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 2, 2025 16:36

This episode of "The Deep Dive" explores the hidden dangers of using standard synthetic ropes in high-voltage environments and the shift towards true dielectric ropes. We discuss how traditional ropes can become conductive when exposed to moisture and contaminants, turning them into a serious safety hazard. We also cover the importance of rigorous testing, proper maintenance, and the barriers to adopting this life-saving technology. Read the article: https://incident-prevention.com/blog/from-risk-to-reliability-improving-rope-safety-in-energized-environments/ Written by Patrick Barry on June 10, 2025. Posted in Worksite Safety. Key Takeaways Traditional Ropes are a Hidden Danger: Standard synthetic ropes, often assumed to be non-conductive, can absorb moisture and contaminants, making them conductive and posing a significant risk in energized environments. True Dielectric Ropes are a System: A true dielectric rope is more than just a product; it's a system that includes a specific design for electrical insulation, rigorous testing against global standards, and a commitment to proper maintenance throughout its lifecycle. Barriers to Adoption: The adoption of dielectric ropes has been slow due to factors like resistance to change, the misconception that they are only necessary for live-line work, and financial hurdles. Best Practices are Crucial: To ensure the safety and reliability of dielectric ropes, it's essential to verify compliance with standards, store and maintain them properly, inspect them before each use, and provide thorough training for all workers. Q&A 1. What is the main problem with using traditional synthetic ropes in high-voltage environments? The main problem is that while the base material of these ropes (like polyester or polypropylene) is an insulator, the rope as a whole can absorb moisture, dirt, and oil. This contamination can make the rope conductive, turning it from a safe tool into a hidden hazard. 2. What makes a "true" dielectric rope different from a standard synthetic rope? A true dielectric rope is designed specifically for electrical insulation from the start and is rigorously tested against global standards like IEC 62192 and ASTM F1701. These ropes are also meant to be maintained like any other critical insulating tool, with a focus on their entire lifecycle. 3. What are some of the barriers preventing the widespread adoption of dielectric ropes? Some of the main barriers include a general resistance to change within the industry, with some believing the old ropes are "good enough". Other barriers are the dangerous assumption that work is always de-energized, dismissing the importance of wet testing, and the financial hurdles associated with the higher upfront cost of these ropes. #RopeSafety #ElectricalSafety #WorkplaceSafety #IncidentPrevention #LinemanSafety #DielectricRope ________________________________ This podcast is sponsored by T&D Powerskills. If you are looking for a comprehensive lineworker training solution, visit tdpowerskills.com today and use the exclusive podcast listener promo code IP2025 to receive a 5% discount!

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Medical Device Software Versioning

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Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2025 39:38

Managing Software Updates in Medical Devices: Best Practices & Pitfalls In the world of medical devices, software updates are never just technical tweaks—they directly impact patient safety, regulatory compliance, and product reliability. Managing these updates correctly is a challenge many manufacturers face, especially with evolving standards like ISO 13485 and IEC 62304. In this episode of our podcast, we dive into the critical aspects of software update management for medical devices: Versioning strategies – How to classify bug fixes, minor updates, and major releases, and the role of semantic versioning in regulated environments. Documentation & traceability – Why proper version control and documentation are essential for audits and compliance. Communication with stakeholders – Best practices for release notes, change logs, and informing users, regulators, and internal teams. Common pitfalls – Mistakes that lead to compliance risks and how to avoid them. Pro tips & resources – Actionable recommendations to strengthen your update and versioning strategy. Whether you are a software engineer, QA/RA professional, or regulatory affairs manager, this episode will give you practical tools and insights to build a robust, compliant, and audit-ready update process.

The promise of IEC 61131-3 language portability

Control Intelligence

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 4, 2025 7:12

At the end of 2023, the Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE) sponsored a report from consulting firm BCG called “The US Needs More Engineers. What's the Solution?” in December 2023. It showed that the United States is facing a massive shortage of engineers. In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Joey Stubbs, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses IEC 61131-3 language portability.

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A JAK inhibitor for CRS and ICANS prevention; ChAdOx1-platelet interactions and post-vaccination arterial thrombosis; lineage switch, an emerging mechanism of leukemia relapse

Blood Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 24, 2025 18:51

In this week's episode, we'll learn about a JAK inhibitor to prevent complications of CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapy. In a phase 2 study, itacitinib was well tolerated and demonstrated promising reductions in the incidence of cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity. After that: investigators report direct interactions between ChAdOx1 and platelets under arterial shear conditions. Investigators say it's a novel biophysical mechanism that potentially contributes to post-vaccination arterial thrombosis. Finally, we explore lineage switch, an emerging form of acute leukemia relapse with dismal outcomes. It arises rapidly following antigen-targeted immunotherapy, highlighting the importance of advanced methods for detection and treatment.Featured Articles: Itacitinib for the prevention of IEC therapy–associated CRS: results from the 2-part phase 2 INCB 39110-211 studyShear-dependent platelet aggregation by ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine: a novel biophysical mechanism for arterial thrombosisProject EVOLVE: an international analysis of postimmunotherapy lineage switch, an emergent form of relapse in leukemia

210 - Ciberseguridad OT 360°: de la planta al negocio, claves para 2025

Let‘s Talk (Latam)

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 22, 2025 13:10

En este videocast exploramos por qué la ciberseguridad OT se ha convertido en un pilar crítico para la continuidad operativa y la seguridad física de las industrias. Revisaremos el modelo Purdue, los marcos IEC 62443 y NIST 800-82, casos reales de implementación en energía e oil & gas, la convergencia IT/OT con IIoT e IoMT, y un plan de “quick wins” para obtener resultados en solo seis semanas. Cerramos con recomendaciones ejecutivas para Heads de Tecnología y Negocio que buscan blindar sus operaciones antes de 2026.

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Commission Siemens VFDs using StartDrive (P240)

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Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2025 54:17 Transcription Available

Shawn Tierney meets up with Jackie Stokes of Siemens to learn how to commission VFDs using StartDrive in this episode of The Automation Podcast. For any links related to this episode, check out the “Show Notes” located below the video. Watch The Automation Podcast from The Automation Blog: Listen to The Automation Podcast from The Automation Blog: Read the transcript on The Automation Blog: (automatically generated) Shawn Tierney (Host): Everybody, thank you for tuning back in. In this episode, I actually meet back up with Jackie Stokes from Siemens to learn how to use a start drive to commission Siemens drive, specifically the g one twenty and the g two twenty. Although, I’m sure some of the other drives are very similar. And this actually came from a request from a viewer who’s who asked that we have somebody on the show us that. And because I’m not the expert, I reached out to Jackie and she agreed to come on. So I’m looking forward to that. Now we’re gonna cover the g one twenty. The g two twenty, we’re gonna cover how to change Siemens drives to be Ethernet IP instead of PROFINET. They have Ethernet IP built in, which is really cool. And then we’re gonna cover some free training they have coming up. I will include those links below as well as the links from Jackie below in the description. You should see that on all platforms. And I do wanna reach out to you and ask for a favor. I’m coming up on my ten year anniversary of doing this full time, and I was hoping that you guys could help me out to reach a 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. Now I know a lot of you listen on Apple, a lot listen on Spotify, a lot of you consume the shows over at the automationblog.com, and I appreciate you all. But I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could hit a 100,000 subscribers over on YouTube by the end of the year? And maybe if we do, we could have a celebration. We could do a live stream, do some q and a. I’d love to hear what you guys thought over I actually started the channel twelve years ago. I was doing a part time to start, and I’d love to know what your favorite episodes were or what episodes what kind of episodes you like to see in the future. And so if you guys I know even if you’re on another platform, if you do have a YouTube account, if you could swing by, it’s at insights I a. That’s a lot shorter than insights in automation. So I shortened it up, I think it was a year ago or two years ago. So it’s at insights I a. Again, if you guys are up to it, I’d love to try to hit a 100,000 subscribers by the end of the year to celebrate my tenth year doing this full time. And with that, let’s go ahead and jump into how to use StarDrive to set up and commission Siemens VFDs like the g one twenty and g two twenty. Jackie, welcome back to the show. I’m so happy to have you back on and here to talk about using, Siemens VFDs inside of TIA portal. Now we’ve talked about your VFDs so many times on the show over the years, and but we’ve never actually, like, put one in TIA portal and tried it out. And I had actually had a a viewer ask about that. So thank you for agreeing to come back on. And just in case, some of the audience members didn’t watch the previous episodes where you were on, Could you quickly introduce yourself before jumping into our topic for today? Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Sure. And thanks for having me back on the show. So my name is Jackie Stokes. I am a marketing programs development manager at Siemens. I work in the motion control business unit. I’ve been in the business for, oh my goodness, I’m getting old, like, fourteen years now. So I but I’ve been with Siemens for about three and a half years. So, yeah, we’ve talked about, our drives family. I think most recently, we talked about the Synamix g two twenty drive with Ivan, one of our product managers. But, yeah, happy to be back and talking about how to integrate our VFDs into portal. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. And I appreciate that. I mean, you don’t know what you don’t know. And so when we’re going to integrate our first, you know, drive into TIA Portal, it’s kinda like, well, what do we do? And so I wanted to have you on. I I could have fumbled through it myself, but I’m like, why not just talk to the experts? So let me turn it back to you, and, let’s go ahead and jump in. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Yeah. Sure. So, I have just brief slides before we get hands on. I have a demo unit with me, but just wanna cover what we’re talking about. So we’re talking about our general purpose VFD. It is called SINAMICS g one twenty. So Sinamics is the name of our drive family, and g stands for general purpose. So that’s kind of the decoder ring for Sinamics g one twenty. It does come in a few different flavors. It comes in a modular version version, which we’re using today. It comes in a compact version, which is g one twenty c, And it also comes in a distributed or on machine version, which is, g one twenty d or a similar drive, g one fifteen d, and that d is for distributed. So the modular version of this drive, comes with a control unit, a power module, as well as an operator interface. So you can kind of see on the pictures to the right, what this looks like. So the control unit can be separated from the power, module, and then the operator interface can be separated from the components as well. So we’re using control unit two forty e Dash two p n dash f, and then we’re using a power module two forty dash two IP 20. The firmware version, I believe, is the latest. It’s firmware version 4.7 service pack 14 hotfix four. And the software, we are using start drive. StartDrive is our software for commissioning drives, and it’s in TIA Portal. So if you don’t, have a TIA Portal license, to program our PLCs, for instance, StartDrive is free. So you can download StartDrive and it will open essentially in TIA Portal. It’s just that if you’re using the free version of StartDrive and you don’t have a license for TIA Portal like programming the PLCs, you won’t be able to program a PLC in it, but you will be able to commission your drive. So that’s the little distinction between Start Drive and TIA Portal. There is also a Start Drive Advanced, for advanced features and programming in the drive that you do have to pay for, but, most of what you can do and what we’ll do today, you can do in the free version of StartDrive, and we’ll give you a link to that, how to download StartDrive. And, of course, this is just one way to commission a drive. You can also commission it with that industrial operator panel, the IOP dash two, which you can see on your screen. We also have a basic version of it, and then we do have a smart access module which generates, a Wi Fi hotspot, and then you can, you know, step away from the drive, connect on your phone. So three different ways to commission that drive. But if you’re a portal user and you’re using a Siemens PLC or maybe you just, you know, want to do this in software, it’s really easy to do as well. So I’m going to give you a brief overview of what we’re doing, so the procedure, and then I’ll jump into the software and show you what we’re doing. So basically, basic, we’re going to start off with opening TIA Portal, creating a new project, we’ll go online with the drive via accessible devices. This is where we have the opportunity to assign a name and IP address to the drive, and then we will add the drive to the project. So we are going to upload the device as a new station. So once it’s in the project, we’ll go online with the drive. We’re gonna use a commissioning wizard, which is gonna step us through all the parameters and settings that we need to commission the drive. We’ll do a motor ID and tuning and optimization. And then finally, we’ll just kind of take a look at the parameters and other features that we can see in portal. So with that, I am going to switch screens. So now we are in, my other computer, which we’re gonna use to program the drive. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna open TIA portal. I already have it open, but you can see the icon here. We are gonna use TIA Portal v 20, so this is the latest version of Portal. And this is what it looks like when you open Portal. What you wanna do is create a new project. So I’m just gonna hit create a new project. We’ll call this g column 20. Okay. So if you’ve never seen TIA Portal before, you have a lot of different options, and it can be slightly overwhelming. So I recommend we go to project view, and that’s a good way to just jump into what we need to see, for our commissioning. So the first thing we wanna do so this is what portal looks like. A lot of different windows, a lot of things going on. At the end, I’ll talk about some free training we have. If you’re unfamiliar with portal and you want to, just see what it looks like and understand all the windows and buttons and how to be efficient in the tool. But for today, I’m just gonna show you the commissioning. So under online access, I’m just gonna expand this on the left hand side. So this is our project tree. You can see we don’t have any devices here. You could add a new device if you wanted, but right now, we’ll just look at our online access. So these are all the things that we can access online, our communications. I’m gonna click up here, which is accessible devices. And up here, this is how we’re gonna find the drive. So on my computer, I am networked to the drive. So I’m connected to an Ethernet switch on the drive itself, and then my computer has two Ethernet ports, and the port I’m looking for is this, gigabit network connection. So this is the one that’s tied to the drive. You may have to adjust these settings on your own PC in order to see the drive. But, once you have these configured, you know, you can see different options here. You’re gonna hit start search, and as we’re waiting, one thing to keep in mind is you will need to configure your network adapter settings so that you’re on the same subnet mask as this drive. So, just make sure your PC is configured properly. Otherwise, it won’t be able to find the drive. So here we are. We see this G 120 Drive one. It has this IP address, one nine two point one six eight point zero point one, and you can see the device type here. So, earlier I mentioned that control unit, that CU two forty e, that is the drive we’re connected to. So we’re gonna hit show here. We’re gonna highlight it, and then we’ll hit show. Shawn Tierney (Host): Now just for the audience who is listening, there is an option there to flash the screen. So like I showed you with the PLCs in previous episodes, you can do that with the drive as well. It has a little checkbox here. So if you had three or four drives side by side, you could make sure you connect it to the right one by flashing the screen. So go ahead. I’ll turn it back to you, Jackie. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Yeah. That’s a that’s a good point. So right. I I have just one demo unit in my room, so I know what I’m connected to, but that is that’s a very good point. You can flash that little LED. So now you can see we have under online access, under this, gigabit port network connection, we have this g one twenty drive, and this is where we can go to online and diagnostics, and we can make some changes here. So you’ll see, we know we’re online. So this is another key thing when you’re commissioning drives or any devices within or working with devices within TIA Portal is making sure you’re online with the the correct device and and that you are online. And so this turns to orange up here, and you can see, like, online access here. So that’s an indication that you are online with that device. So we’ll go to functions here, and this is where you can assign a name. So if you wanted, we could call this drive underscore one. And then what you do is just hit assign name. And then, like, let’s say we wanna change the IP address to dot three, and we’ll assign the IP address. So we changed the name, we changed this IP address. If you double click on update accessible devices, you can see that our drive one drive underscore one name changed and that, the IP address changed. So that’s what we that’s what we’re looking for. So we just made those changes to the drive. Now what we can do, and, actually, once you change the IP address, you might need to cycle power. So I’m gonna cycle power to the drive. One second. But what we can do in the meantime is we can upload this device as a new station. So what this is going to do is it’s going to put the drive into the project and it’s creating this drive underscore one. And it’s giving us a little bit of a warning, but that’s okay. We’re gonna upload from the device. Okay. So now we see drive underscore one in our project tree. I’m going to kind of minimize this online access, and we’re gonna look at the drive up here so we don’t get too confused. So here, we wanna make sure we want to go online with the drive so we can make sure you so, you know, once you if you’re following along, you wanna make sure you select this drive, especially if you have lots of other things in your project tree, because you can go online with a lot of different things. So if you have I remember when I was first learning, portal yeah. If you don’t have the right thing selected and you select go online and you’re going online with something else, that’s not quite right. So make sure you have it selected and then hit go online up here. It’s this little orange connector. And then you’ll see this green check mark. So that indicates that we are online and connected and the drive is happy. So now we’ll go to the commissioning wizard. So under here, we’ll double click commissioning, and we have a few options here. So you see the commissioning wizard. We see control panel, motor optimization, and this backup and restore. So we’ll start here with the commissioning wizard. And then, basically, it’s just gonna step us through how we wanna set up this drive. So we have some options here, the application class. So, there’s expert, which means that all the options are available in the wizard. There’s standard drive control, which again is the most common applications. And then we have dynamic drive control. So these are more advanced applications. So you can kinda read through this. And if you had questions about what I should be using, you can click this little green arrow here at the bottom for online help. So we’ll just click standard drive control, and we’ll hit next. And this is where you have the option. You need to tell it, are you connected to a PLC? If you are, where that ramp function is. Is it in the PLC, or are you gonna do it in the drive, or is it gonna be a standalone drive, no PLC? So I’ll walk through this scenario with, standard drive no PLC, and then I can also show you what it looks like if you go the PLC route and how that configures. But a lot of the things are are the same. So you have an IO configuration here. You have some options. I’m gonna choose 12. As you can see at the top here, they’re predefined interconnections of the inputs and outputs. However, you can change them later. So, choose the one that best fits your application, but, again, keep in mind, you can change it later if, you change your mind or need to change something. We’ll click next. We are using this motor. So I’m just gonna keep this here, this IEC, and then two twenty volt. We do not have a breaking resistor, and we do not have a filter. Again, this is where you have the option to select a filter if you are using one, and then it’ll give you a few more. I’ll just show you an example. So if we had a a sine wave filter third party, you would have to input these values. But for this application, we’ll choose no filter, and then we’re gonna enter the motor data. So this is where you’re going to need to read your motor nameplate data, and then we’ll input the motor nameplate data here. So right now we have point nine seven, point one eight and kilowatts, and then 350 RPM, and then we’ll hit next, and then we’ll hit next. This is where, I wouldn’t don’t touch the current limit. I’m not gonna touch the minimum speed or maximum speed. You have the option here to change your ramp up time or ramp down time if you want. So just, for example, we’ll change these values here, and we’ll click next. You have an option to change the application, so constant loads, speed to dependent load, and then the motor identification. So if you want, inhibited, identifying motor at standstill, or motor data identification. So I’ll click, this option two here, and then it says that the motor data identification will be performed at the next time that the drive is enabled. And then we’ll hit next. And then here, we’ll save the RAM to ROM, so it’ll be saved in the drive. And then we’ll hit and you can see the summary up here. So, you have the opportunity, like, if you’re reading through this and maybe you mistyped your motor current, you can go back and, change that setting right now if you wanted. So I would recommend that you read through this, make sure it’s all correct, and then hit finish. So now we are saving to the eprom. I’m going let’s see what’s so it says maintenance required in lower component. So we’re gonna look at diagnostics here. So you can see, sometimes you wanna you know, if this is unhappy, you kinda wanna see what’s going on. So we’ll go to this online and diagnostics here. Diagnostics, general. Okay. So you can see, you know, we have our name of our drive and the part number, but let’s look at active faults on alarms. Okay. And what it doesn’t like, the motor data identification activated. So it basically, it’s looking for that motor data, and that’s why it’s it’s giving us this little maintenance required. So what we can do is we’ll go back into commissioning. We’ll go into motor optimization here. And so once you click on it, it’s gonna give you a warning. This motor identification is performed once the drive is enabled. So we’ll click okay. And then what we can do so first, what you can we’ll hit, activate here. We’ll click accept, and then we’ll switch on. And then our motor ID is done. And you can see here, it has switched from that, kind of wrench icon to this green checkbox icon, which means that we did a good job. Shawn Tierney (Host): So it went through and, identified the motor. It applied power to the motor, and I couldn’t see what was happening with the motor. Did it turn the motor at all, or did it just supply power to it? Or Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Yes. So it just supplied power to it. So and you can see here the the following parameters are determined or changed when the motor with with the motor data identification. So this is what it’s looking at. And we did a stationary measurement, so it did not rotate during that measurement. Shawn Tierney (Host): Okay. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): And then we can deactivate control. Yes. Okay. And then we can look at the control panel. So this is kinda cool. This allows you to test the drive in TIA Portal. You know, we didn’t write any PLC programming. We haven’t, you know, since I have this demo unit, it’s wired up for these particular, you know, little switches that I have on it. But Mhmm. Regardless and independent of that, we can actually, you know, kinda jog and turn on the drive and just test it out. So I’m gonna hit activate master control. And again, it’s gonna give us a warning because the drive can move. So just be aware of what you’re doing. It wants to make sure you’re you’re okay with this. So I’m gonna hit accept. We can give it a speed set point, so we’ll give it 200 RPM, and then we can give it a forward command. We can tell it to go backwards. We can increase the speed. And, you know, you can jog forward to this momentary push button here. And yeah. So it says a nice way to to kinda test it out right here. And then we can deactivate the control. And so and then once you’ve done this, you know, you can go to backup and restore. So this will save RAM to RAM. We can save it here. It’ll save RAM to RAM. One thing that I should have done when I was first starting out, and that is restore to factory settings. So I won’t do this now, but you can you know, if you get in a situation where you do need to restore to factory settings or, you gotta drive from somewhere else and you need to restore it, you can do that within TIA Portal. So we could do that now and then and then redo the commissioning. So occasionally at least in my experience with the demo units, sometimes they come in and you don’t know what someone has done with them. Sure. So you wanna start with this. But since I’ve been playing around with this demo, for the past few days, I kinda know what’s in it. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. And that would be important too if you took the if you’re repurposing it from one application to another, you definitely wouldn’t wanna wipe out everything, restore it to the factory defaults before you, before you use it on a new application. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Yes. And that is something, that’s something you can do in, that online access area. So once you’re you know, so here, when you first saw that drive before you upload it as a new station, you have that ability. You know, again, it’s in that commissioning menu. It’s it’s mirrored up here too. Yeah. But you can go there and do that backup and restore. So that’s the best practice, again, if you’re repurposing a drive. But if it’s out of the box, you know, it’s already at factory default. So once your drive is in a good state, you’ve done your commissioning, you’ve saved RAM to ROM. What you want to do is you want to make sure your drive is selected, which it should be, but we’ll just go offline here. And then what you wanna do, just to be sure so your project should match what was in the drive, but, a good best practice here is to upload from the device. So that means your project will match whatever is in the drive right now. So this is just warning us, this Telegram configuration, but we’ll hit upload from device. And then we will save our project. So that is, how you make sure your project now matches the drive. And then if you wanted, you could, you know, have another drive that you’re connecting to, and you could then download to that device, but we know the project matches. So that was a good overview of commissioning basic commissioning for Synamix g one twenty. Our newer drives look a little different. The commissioning wizard is different. So we’re coming out with our next generation of Synamics drives, two drives to look out for. One is our motion drive. So it’s a servo motion. It is the Synamix s two ten, and then we have a new drive, the Synamix g two twenty, who Ivan, our product manager for that product, was on the show about a year ago and talked in-depth about it. But the whole product family sits a little bit higher than the g one twenty in terms of, capabilities and performance. So it’s not a successor to the g one twenty. It’s it’s a complement to the product portfolio. But I’ll just give you an overview of what that looks like. We can since I don’t have this demo myself, right now, I’m gonna add a new device. So, again, another idea if, let’s say, you wanted to get your project already so that once your drive arrives, you can just simply download to it. Another way to do this is to add a new device here in your project tree instead of scanning for it, you know, on the network, assuming you’re connected to a physical device. We can just add it here, do all the commissioning, set up all the parameters, and then once you get the physical drive, you can download to that drive. So, as you can see here, on the left hand side, we have controllers, HMI, PC systems, drives. So it’s gonna let you add whatever you want to your project. I have it selected on drives, and we’ll name this, g two twenty. And then here, you know, we’re just gonna filter down. So you see all of our g drives here. The g two twenty is at the bottom. We’ll do g two twenty PROFINET also means Ethernet IP, and make sure the version, article number, and we’ll hit okay. Ah, so if you listen to Ivan’s overview of the g two twenty, one of the new features is its security. And when we say security here in this context, we’re talking about user security. So user management and access control, also known as UMAQ or abbreviated UMAQ. So what you have the opportunity to do here is to configure your security settings. If you want, you can also continue with low security settings. But this is what this looks like. I’ll just kinda walk through what it looks like. So start a new configuration, what it is. So if you’re unfamiliar with user manage management and access control, this is what it tells you you can do with this tool. So you can enable UMac for the project and prompt users to log in in order to work with the project. You can enable UMac for the drive and prompt users to log in in order to work with the drive via the web server and start drive. So one of the new commissioning options that you have with our next generation of drives is a web server. And, again, I don’t have the drive with me now, so I won’t show you the web server. We’ll just show you TIA Portal, but that’s what it’s referring to when it says this web server. So just be aware if you check these boxes, and then these later steps will go through, you will have to know your username and password or you will not be able to access this drive. So, just remember to save save your passwords, if you do yes. If you do go down this route. Now, the scenario of I lost my password, I lost my username, I can’t access this drive. How do I get around that? Well, the only way to get around that is you’re going to have to get a u sorry, an SD card and insert that into the drive and it will have just reset. Txt on it, so a reset text file. Shawn Tierney (Host): Okay. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Yes. So there is a way. It’s you’re not totally, you know, in trouble there, but, you will have to reset the whole drive. So there’s no there’s no, secret way of getting around it. So if you do enable that, that is how you would restore your drive or get access to it again, and then you can see here. So, data encryption, if you wanted, you could do this, Activate user controls incomplete. Ah, okay. So it said it was incomplete because we did not specify a password, so we have to specify a password here. And I think it has some requirements for your password, so you just wanna make sure you remember this one. We’ll hit okay and then next. It doesn’t like this. I have to click I have read the information above. Yes. Okay. Click next. Username. So you could allow a guest to enable access to the drive. It’s up to you. Uses the anonymous user, so we’ll hit yes. Allow data exchange via fieldbus. So is the anonymous user as they is used for fieldbus communication. So again, just want to make sure you understand these settings. The SDI standard panel access, so we’ll allow the drive to be changed via the standard panel without a username and password, web server access, so again going through all the different ways to access this drive and making sure you are okay with how you’re accessing it. Data encryption, next, and then we will hit finish. So it’s pretty in-depth. Again, you if you don’t want to, you can skip the security settings. You can also go back and reconfigure them too. So if you’re just working on this project, you know, you don’t you can configure it later. So here, similar to that, drive one, which is the g one twenty, we have all of our options here. We’re gonna go to device configuration or yes. So we’ll look at our device configuration. You can see here, we have our Synamix g two twenty. We have a motor here, which we actually don’t have a motor. So let’s see here. Properties. Yes. So we just added the drive. We didn’t add a motor. So we can add the motor here. This is where we’re gonna enter our motor data, for whatever motor we have. So I’m just gonna make up some values. This is what’s on my current demo unit, so point seven. Obviously, you wanna look at your motor nameplate and make sure it matches, and then we’ll go to our guided quick setup. So little different look and feel, compared to what we did with the g one twenty. It’s giving us a warning here, so the device is not specified. Specify the device first. We can click on this here. So it wants a little bit more information on what drive we’re using. Shawn Tierney (Host): Yeah. The power. Right? Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Yes. So, again, since we’re, we cheated well, I wouldn’t say cheated. But with the g one twenty, when you have it, when you’re online with it, you can upload as new station, so it’s detecting what you have. Mhmm. But since we don’t have that, we’re making this up in the project. It needs to know, the information. So we’re just gonna pick this one here to satisfy the requirement, and now it’s now it’s happy again. So we’ll go back to quick guided startup. Yes. And our warning went away. I’ll just move this down. Alright. So connection to the PLC. Define connection. Actually, I’m gonna minimize this window here. Yes. Do you want to connect it? Will it connect to a PLC via Telegram? In this case, we’ll say yes. It won’t be standalone. It’ll be connected to a PLC. And then do we want the ramp function in the drive, or do we want in the PLC? We’ll say we want it with the drive. And then, you know, if you’re using safety integrated functions via Prophysafe, you can check that box. So we have made our selections here. Actually, let’s I wanna see green check boxes at the top. Okay. So we’ve made our selection and you can see the green box. So we we have done completed this step. So select the application, we’re gonna select speed control, we’ll go next. The operating mode, so similar to that g one twenty, it’s asking a standard drive control, dynamic, and you can see how this changes, or selecting other closed loop control modes. So we’ll go back with standard drive control and click next. Here are the limits. So again, that maximum and minimum speed, this ramp up time, we’ll change it to five seconds. Our limits has turned green. So again, we have an option here, this fieldbus with data switch over. You can delete all these connections if you want, but, this is just how your digital inputs are, digital inputs, digital outputs, analog inputs, and analog outputs are connected. So you have the option if you wanna get rid of them, or if you want to to keep them and modify them. So we’ll just keep them, and we’ll hit next. Shawn Tierney (Host): Graphical mapping there of each digital and each IO point to the actual value in the drive, where the previous drive, we had a bunch of items to choose from. We chose 12, which was the standard, you know, your standard inputs and outputs and analog values. But here, it’s very graphical. I like this. This looks really cool, and it looks like it almost looks like I can go in, like, the where it says no connection. D I four. Right? No connection. It looks like you could choose, like, a yeah. Look at that list. A whole list of parameters that you could choose to put in that spot. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Yes. Exactly. You can get to this setting in the g one twenty. It’s just not part of the commissioning. Shawn Tierney (Host): So Okay. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): So but that’s a that’s a good point. So in here, in the, you know, in this newest generation of drives, the commissioning, you have the option to set this up here. But, yeah, it you’re right. You can do it in the g one twenty, but it it doesn’t prompt you right from the get go. Shawn Tierney (Host): Okay. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): I’m gonna go back to application setting because I just wanna make sure I you can show more data. Let’s see. Okay. Now that looks good. Next. Telegram. Here we go. So since we’re talking to a PLC, it wants to know which Telegram we’re gonna use. So the Telegram is basically that exchange of data between PLC and drive. It comes from, like, the PROFI drive, profile. So it’s kind of a a PROFINET thing term, I guess, I should say. So you want to know what I’m trying to say is you wanna know what each of these telegrams mean in terms of status and control words and the information being exchanged between PLC and drive. So we usually use well, I shouldn’t say usually, but we use, like, Siemens Telegram three fifty two, for basic, like, speed control. But you can choose any of these telegrams, and I would encourage you, if you’re not familiar with telegrams, to, you know, look at the table, see what what kind of data is being exchanged between the drive and PLC, so that you’re selecting the correct one. And you can change this later if you want. So so, you know, so if, if you make the wrong selection here, you can go back and change it. Shawn Tierney (Host): Now it looks like it wants us to update the, IO configuration now because we changed the Telegram, which would make sense. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Ah, yes. And, I’ll go back to that for a second. So if you go to this PZD interconnections and this and so this is, process data. That’s what the PZD kinda stands for. If we click on that, you can see here what, the Telegram configuration looks like. So you can see, you know, the alarm code, the fault code, current torque speed, and the control. And then that’s in the receive direction. So that’s just what it looks like here. K. And you’re right. So if we go IO configuration Yes. So you’re right. Since we are using Telegram three fifty two, we are not having these IO connections connected to parameters within the drive. Next. We’ll be prompted for this rotate and optimize. So again, we have this option, identify motor data, optimize PDs controller, identify motor data at standstill. So we’ll just keep that and hit next. And at the end here is our summary. So these are all the changes we made, similar to g one twenty. You can go through, make sure you set everything correctly, and then you would perform a download, except we, don’t have our drive yet. So you can’t quite do that right now. But what you can do, is you can save this. So you can save your project, and then once you get your drive, you can, go online with it and download to that drive. Shawn Tierney (Host): Excellent. I mean, it’s interesting to see the difference between the, the original one we looked at, the g one twenty, and then this model, the g two twenty, and to see how the the wizard changed over time. And it’s it’s just very interesting. This one seems to be more like like, it’s offering you more details upfront. And, but it’s good to know both because you may have a one twenty or a two twenty or some other drive, so understanding the different interfaces is very helpful. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Yes. So now what I wanna show so right now we have this drive configured, to run with a PLC. We’ve have it configured for Telegram three fifty two. And then what we can also do so, like, say we’re in a scenario. Right now it’s configured all the drives are configured, for PROFINET out of the box this G120 and this G220. But let’s say we have a scenario where we need to configure it for ethernet IP. So maybe we’re using a non Siemens controller. How would you do that? So it’s a little different in the g two twenty compared to the g one twenty. So I just want to make, you know, our viewers aware of these differences. So what we wanna do in the g two twenty is we wanna go to this drive here. We’re going to hit properties. So we’re gonna pull up this window, so that we can see it while close out that commissioning window. So now we’re in the properties of this. And what we want to do is go to protection and security here. Shawn Tierney (Host): Mhmm. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): And ports and protocols, and this is the fieldbus and related protocol configuration. So this is where we can switch to Ethernet IP or Modbus TCP. We’re gonna switch to Ethernet IP, and then we’ll hit okay. And that’s all we had to do. So again here, you could right click. I think you can yeah. Right click and hit properties here, and then that would is how you find it. Shawn Tierney (Host): Nice. That was easy. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Yes. Now what’s different is in the g one twenty, so we’ll go up here. It’s actually just a parameter in the g one twenty. Oh. So this is a little different. So what I do usually is I go to parameter view, and then I go to display extended parameters. So this shows all the parameters. And I’m gonna hit control f, so I’m gonna find it. And it’s parameter twenty thirty for field bus. Let’s go find it. And you can see here, you know, since we made this a standalone drive, it has no protocol, and this is where you can change it from PROFINET or Ethernet IP. Shawn Tierney (Host): Nice. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): So the big difference here is, like the g one twenty, the s one twenty, these all have a parameter, parameter twenty thirty, and you just change one parameter and it switches between Ethernet and PROFINET. In the newer drives, you have to go into the device properties, ports and protocols, and make that change if you wanna make it. Shawn Tierney (Host): That’s good to know. It’s, I don’t think I woulda guessed that. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): It was something we learned when we got our new demos. So is there anything else? Shawn Tierney (Host): I think that’s enough to get anybody started. I mean, it’s always good. If you have to sit down with a new VFD, it’s always good to have somebody kinda walk through it first, and then that gives you the confidence to get in there. You know you could get something working. And I I don’t think you’ll ever get through one of these commissionings without having to crack the book. You’ll definitely wanna read any literature that comes with the VFD. There’s safety stuff in there you gotta know about, because you’re gonna follow NEC and all those other applicable, codes, but, and all, you know, safety safety codes as well. But, you know, I think, you know, just having somebody it’s one thing to read a book. It’s another thing to see actually somebody walk through it. And I know I feel a lot more confident, that I’m, you know, now going and trying something out than I would have before you came on and showed us how to do this. So I really appreciate you, Jackie, the time. And I don’t know. Was there anything else you want to show? Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Yes. I do wanna show, some resources we have, to get you guys started and, you know, help you on your journey to commissioning cinematics drives in TIA Portal. So if you are new to, TIA Portal, Synamics drives, just integrating maybe a PLC into TIA Portal, integrating a drive into TIA Portal, we have a really cool tool. So, or I should say a really cool class. So it’s TIA University. So they’re free expert led workshops, and self study courses. So there are some basic video series. Again, most of this is for, you know, PLC, TIA Portal. However, they do incorporate how to integrate a Dynamics drive into this. So if you’ve never opened up TIA Portal or if it’s been a while, I recommend you do this TIA Test Drive class. So it happens every month. It’s a full day. It is virtual instructor led, so you’ll be able to remote into a TIA portal project and follow along with the instructor. So you will get to be hands on, but you can do it from your office, from home, from wherever. Again, it’s a day long class. You can download the syllabus here and take a look. So that’s the TIA test drive. Gives you a really nice overview of TIA Portal and all the things you can do with it. We also have another class called Merge Logics with TIA Portal. So if you’re a Rockwell user, familiar with Studio 5,000, Logix Designer, and you have a a TIA portal project or a Siemens project coming up and you’re like, oh, I’m not quite sure, how to do that. This gives you context of TIA or this presents TIA portal in the context of what you’re used to in Logix. So if you’re familiar with Logix, the instructor, kind of translates that into TIA Portal for you. So if you’re used to one thing, this is what it looks like in TIA Portal. So again, if you’re, you know, familiar with, Studio 5,000, this will give you a really nice overview. Similar to that TIA test drive class, it’s offered every month. It’s a day long class. It’s hands on but virtual. So, again, we use a hypervisor. You’ll be able to remote into a virtual machine and, get hands on with the software. So I encourage you guys to, join one of those classes or both. And then I also want to I’ll give you these links, or rather Shawn will in the video. So this just kind of covers, all things, Dynamics drives. I’ll link to our website, overview of our VFDs and our high performance and servo drives, distributor DC drives, digital drive train, and then our tools and resources. So we have our Siemens product configurator, sizer, TIA selection tool, SINAMICS selector mobile app, drive connections or drive applications. Here I’ve added this Ethernet IP connectivity. So if you are using SINAMICS drives on Ethernet IP, this will give you all the resources you need to set that up, one, in the drive and then, two, we have add on instructions, EDS files, things like that to make your life easier. And then of course TIA Portal, Dynamic Start Drive, this is what this looks like. So if you do not have Start Drive yet you can download the latest version here And again, that, start drive is within TIA Portal and it’s free, so feel free to download it. And with that, Shawn, it’s been so great to show you all about, TA portal and commissioning, so dynamics drives in it. So feel free to reach out to me again. Shawn Tierney (Host): Jackie, thank you so much for, taking time out of your busy schedule to do this for us. I know, you know, a, an audience member, you know, asked to, us to kinda cover that, and I’m like, you know, and I’m like, I’ll get Jackie back on the show. So thank you for coming on and showing us star drive and how you know, even though it’s integrated in the TI portal, that component allows us to commission our VFDs, you know, upload from download to them, change parameters, you know, identify the motor, and just everything you walked us through was very helpful. And I’m hoping the audience guys, let me know in the comments. Did you think that was helpful? And, do you have any follow-up questions? I think we covered so much territory. I don’t have any questions right now, but I would be, I would be interested in knowing what the audience thinks. And, again, Jackie, thank you so much for your time and for showing us how to use stock drive. Jackie Stokes (Siemens): Thank you, Shawn. Shawn Tierney (Host): Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. I wanna thank Jackie for coming on and teaching us how to use stock drive. I’ve never used it before, so I really appreciate you’re coming on. And if there’s other things you guys wanna see, let me know. I’m have no problem reaching out to the vendors. Sometimes, like, great vendors like Siemens and Rockwell and Schneider and other great vendors, they come on and they’ll they’ll offer it. Sometimes I get crickets, but that’s okay. You don’t know until you try. So if there’s anything else you’d like to see, let me know. And if you do have a YouTube account, maybe you’re watching this on YouTube or you’re listening on Apple or Spotify or at the automationblog.com, please consider giving me a sub over on YouTube. I really would like to try to hit a 100,000 subscribers before the end of the year. It’s kind of a stretch goal, but, you know, this is my tenth year doing this full time, twelfth year since I’ve created the, created the blog and the YouTube site. And I’d really like to see if we couldn’t hit that. I don’t ask a lot. I you know, I’m not one of those people who like to ask for subs and likes and whatnot. I know you have to do it, but in any case, if you guys don’t mind, I’d love to try to hit that number. So if you can help, that would be awesome. In any case, with all that said, I wanna wish you good health and happiness. And until next time, my friends, peace. The Automation Podcast, Episode 240 Show Notes: Special thanks to Jackie for coming back on the show, and to Siemens for sponsoring this episode so we could release it Ad Free! Below you’ll find the timestamps Shawn mentioned in the intro, and helpful links Jackie provided: Timestamps G120: 9:39, 14:59 G220: 28:09 Ethernet/IP: 43:41 Free Training: 47:59 Siemens VFD Links: SINAMICS StartDrive (within TIA Portal) for easy commissioning SINAMICS Low Voltage Drives website Resources for SINAMICS VFDs on EIP and integration with Allen-Bradley PLCs Resources for SINAMICS VFDs and High Performance drives Get started with TIA Portal. Free, one-day, virtual, instructor-led course Know Studio 5000 but not TIA Portal? Free, one-day, virtual, instructor-led course will guide you through TIA Portal, putting terms and practices into a familiar context Siemens documentation, technical support Until next time, Peace ✌️ If you enjoyed this content, please give it a Like, and consider Sharing a link to it as that is the best way for us to grow our audience, which in turn allows us to produce more content

Empowering Electrical Contractors with IEC Chapter CEO Marilyn Akers Stansbury

Keepin' The Lights On

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2025 32:30

In this conversation, Marilyn Akers Stansbury, CEO of the IEC Rocky Mountain Chapter, discusses her journey and the vital role of the Independent Electrical Contractors (IEC) in supporting electrical contractors. The conversation covers key themes such as safety in the electrical industry, workforce development through apprenticeship programs, the challenges faced by electrical contractors in running their businesses, and the importance of creating a positive company culture. Marilyn emphasizes the need for mental health awareness as part of safety and highlights the growth of apprenticeship programs in response to workforce shortages.Thank you for listening and please take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review our show on your favorite app.To get a hold of us here at Keepin' The Lights On, please email: podcast@graybar.comTo reach Marilyn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marilynakersstansbury/Learn more about IEC Rocky Mountain: https://iecrm.org/about-iecrm/staff/The Kitchen, Boulder: https://www.thekitchen.com/location/the-kitchen-bistros-boulder/Rockie Dog at Colorado Rockies Stadium: https://www.mlb.com/rockies/ballpark/foodCall or Text 988 Lifeline: https://988lifeline.org/YouTube: https://youtu.be/yOLNfBg2ErU

OT Security with Watch Mr. Wizard Star Sean Curry

Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2025 32:13

Podcast: HOU.SEC.CAST.Episode: OT Security with Watch Mr. Wizard Star Sean CurryPub date: 2025-05-14Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationMichael and Sam are catching up with Principal Consultant and Co-Founder at Cavalry Solutions, Sean Curry! Sean talks about his transition from the military to the private sector, the importance of standards like IEC 62443 for OT security, and the best way to align IT and OT teams.Things Mentioned:· New study reveals 92% of industrial sites at risk from unsecured remote access - https://www.securityinfowatch.com/critical-infrastructure/press-release/55262827/new-study-reveals-92-of-industrial-sites-at-risk-from-unsecured-remote-access?utm_campaign=4532845-%5BSocial%5D+News+Mentions,+Articles,+and+Bylines&utm_content=323098968&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&hss_channel=lcp-12898104· Sean's Talk: https://youtu.be/Lv6ppq6ZaBs?si=IlBtkFJSEuDshGwF Do you have a question for the hosts? Reach out to us at podcast@houstonseccon.com Keep up with HOU.SEC.CON:· LinkedIn· Twitter· Facebook· Instagram· YouTube· Bluesky Check out our other show:· CyberSundayCheck out our Conferences and Events:· HOU.SEC.CON.· OT.SEC.CON.· EXEC.SEC.CON.· HSC User GroupSupport or apply to our Scholarship Program:· TAB Cyber FoundationIn this episode:· Host: Michael Farnum· Host: Sam Van Ryder· Guest: Sean Curry· Production and editing: Lauren Lynch· Music by: August HoneyThe podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Farnum and Sam Van Ryder, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

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Fortifying the Power Grid: The Role of IEC 62443 and Cybersecurity Standards

security standards cybersecurity sel power grid listen notes fortifying iec

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 27, 2025 46:21

Podcast: Schweitzer Drive (LS 39 · TOP 2% what is this?)Episode: Fortifying the Power Grid: The Role of IEC 62443 and Cybersecurity StandardsPub date: 2025-04-25Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationAs our reliance on electric power continues to grow, so does the need to protect the grid from cyber threats. In this episode, guest host Frank Harrill, VP of Security at SEL, talks with cybersecurity expert Andre Ristaino about how industry standards, specifically IEC 62443, are shaping the future of industrial cybersecurity, including their impact on the electric power grid.The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

Fortifying the Power Grid: The Role of IEC 62443 and Cybersecurity Standards

Schweitzer Drive

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 25, 2025 46:21

As our reliance on electric power continues to grow, so does the need to protect the grid from cyber threats. In this episode, guest host Frank Harrill, VP of Security at SEL, talks with cybersecurity expert Andre Ristaino about how industry standards, specifically IEC 62443, are shaping the future of industrial cybersecurity, including their impact on the electric power grid.

security standards cybersecurity sel power grid fortifying iec

Key CAR T and Transplantation Presentations From The 2025 Tandem Meeting

ASTCT Talks

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2025 56:47

CancerNetwork®, in collaboration with the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT)®, hosted a Twitter/X Space during the 2025 Tandem Meetings. The live conversation featured Rahul Banerjee, MD, FACP, of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and Shernan Holtan, MD, of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. Together, they shared expert commentary on new data in CAR T-cell therapy and hematopoietic cell transplantation.With insights drawn from posters, oral abstracts, and late-breaking presentations, the session unpacked both clinical takeaways and implications for patient care.Highlights included:LBA1 – Ide-cel + lenalidomide maintenance post-transplant in MM patients“This merges two worlds,” said Banerjee. “Not a tandem in the classic sense, but a transplant followed by CAR T.”[Garfall et al., Abstract LBA-1]Abstract 50 – Real-world CAR T use in early relapsed/refractory LBCLHoltan noted, “In this cohort, no statistical survival difference was seen between second- and third-line therapy, though the curves suggest a trend.”[Rojek et al., Abstract 50]Poster 340 – CAR T targeting CD83 in breast cancerBanerjee speculated on future innovations: “If we could deliver these locally, without systemic effects, that would be a game changer.”[Betts et al., Poster 340]Poster 317 – IEC-colitis in cilta-cel-treated patientsBanerjee reflected, “We assumed steroids would help, like with GVHD. But outcomes didn't align.”[Chang Lim et al., Poster 317]Poster 572 – Driving restrictions post-CAR TBanerjee advocated for updated policy: “Patients often can't regain full independence until driving is restored—this restriction lacks strong evidence.”[Banerjee et al., Poster 572]Presentation 58 – Physical function tests to predict ICANS and mortality“These simple tools helped flag patients unlikely to benefit from CAR T,” said Holtan. “This could refine patient selection.”[Herr et al., Presentation 58]Poster 618 – HCT outcomes for MDS patients by age groupHoltan expressed optimism: “We need conditioning regimens that are effective yet gentler—especially for older patients.”[Duarte et al., Poster 618]Presentation 39 – Immune suppression trends post-HCT (18,000+ patients)Looking ahead, Holtan predicted a shift in GVHD care: “In 10 years, steroids may no longer be our go-to.”[Pidala et al., Presentation 39]Poster 516 – Patient experiences with chronic GVHD via social media listeningHoltan emphasized the human element: “We must prioritize mental health, community support, and advocacy alongside clinical treatment.”[Cowden et al., Poster 516]The discussion emphasized not only the clinical relevance of each study but also broader themes—improving quality of life, adjusting standards of care based on real-world findings, and advancing innovation through thoughtful, patient-centered research.References:Garfall AL, et al. Abstract LBA-1. Tandem 2025.Rojek AE, et al. Abstract 50. Tandem 2025.Betts BC, et al. Poster 340. Tandem 2025.Chang Lim KJ, et al. Poster 317. Tandem 2025.Banerjee R, et al. Poster 572. Tandem 2025.Herr M, et al. Presentation 58. Tandem 2025.Duarte FB, et al. Poster 618. Tandem 2025.Pidala J, et al. Presentation 39. Tandem 2025.Cowden M, et al. Poster 516. Tandem 2025.

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How to satisfy Cybersecurity for FDA and EU?

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 10, 2025

In this episode, Cyrille Michaud from MD101 will explain us how to prepare for Cybersecurity compliance for your medical device. We will review the US and EU requirements and provide you a list of legislation and standards you should look at. Cyrille will also share his experience related to the reviews done by a Notified Body and an FDA. Who is Cyrille Michaud? Co-founder and managing partner of MD101 Consulting. Consultant in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs for software in medical devices and software as medical devices. Specialties: Software Processes Management. CE Mark & FDA 510k 21 CFR 820 - ISO 13485 - ISO 14971 - IEC 62304 - IEC 62366 - IEC 60601 - IEC 82304-1 - UL 2900-1 - IEC 81001-5-1 Agile Methods applied to medical device software design. Cybersecurity applied to medical devices. Who is Monir El Azzouzi? Monir El Azzouzi is the founder and CEO of Easy Medical Device a Consulting firm that is supporting Medical Device manufacturers for any Quality and Regulatory affairs activities all over the world. Monir can help you to create your Quality Management System, Technical Documentation or he can also take care of your Clinical Evaluation, Clinical Investigation through his team or partners. Easy Medical Device can also become your Authorized Representative and Independent Importer Service provider for EU, UK and Switzerland. Monir has around 16 years of experience within the Medical Device industry working for small businesses and also big corporate companies. He has now supported around 100 clients to remain compliant on the market. His passion to the Medical Device filed pushed him to create educative contents like, blog, podcast, YouTube videos, LinkedIn Lives where he invites guests who are sharing educative information to his audience. Visit easymedicaldevice.com to know more. Link Cyrille Michaud LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/cyrillemichaud/ MD101 : www.MD101.io Trainings on Cybersecurity : https://blog.cm-dm.com/pages/Medical-Device-Software-Trainings Blog post sur cyber et normes : https://blog.cm-dm.com/post/2023/10/06/Final-2023-FDA-Premarket-Cybersecurity-guidance-released FDA resources on cybersecurity : https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/digital-health-center-excellence/cybersecurity IG NB checklists : https://www.ig-nb.de/veroeffentlichungen (page in German but download links in the page are in English) Standard IEC 81001-5-1 and 81001-5-2: https://blog.cm-dm.com/post/2024/10/04/IEC-81001-5-2%3A-AAMI-SW96-cousin-and-IEC-80001-5-1-sister Blog IEC 81001-5-1: https://blog.cm-dm.com/post/2024/02/23/IEC-81001-5-1-Right-Here-Right-Now Social Media to follow Monir El Azzouzi Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/melazzouzi Twitter: https://twitter.com/elazzouzim Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/easymedicaldevice Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/easymedicaldevice

Securing Food Systems with a Defense Mindset with Brian Schleifer

ITSPmagazine | Technology. Cybersecurity. Society

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 6, 2025 63:18

Podcast: Bites & Bytes PodcastEpisode: Securing Food Systems with a Defense Mindset with Brian SchleiferPub date: 2025-04-02Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization

How to restrict PSCs' instruction sets

Control Intelligence

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 10, 2025 8:29

In this episode of Control Intelligence, written by contributing editor Joey Stubbs, editor in chief Mike Bacidore discusses which IEC 61131-3 programming languages are best for safety controllers.

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From Signaling to Safety: Protecting Critical Infrastructure and the Modern Railway from Digital Threats | A Conversation with Fahad Mughal | Redefining CyberSecurity with Sean Martin

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 31, 2025 52:43

Guest: Fahad Mughal, Senior Cyber Solutions Architect - SecurityOn LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/fahadmughal/____________________________Host: Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast [@RedefiningCyber]On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/sean-martinView This Show's Sponsors___________________________Episode NotesModern railway systems are increasingly digital, integrating operational technology (OT) to enhance efficiency, reliability, and safety. However, as railways adopt automated and interconnected systems, they also become more vulnerable to cyber threats. In this episode of Redefining Cybersecurity on ITSP Magazine, host Sean Martin speaks with Fahad Ali Mughal, a cybersecurity professional with extensive experience in OT security architecture, about the challenges and priorities of securing railway infrastructure.The Growing Role of Cybersecurity in RailwaysRailway systems have evolved from steam-powered locomotives to autonomous, driverless trains that rely on sophisticated digital controls. OT now plays a crucial role in managing train operations, signaling, interlocking, and trackside equipment. These advancements improve efficiency but also expose railway networks to cyber threats that can disrupt service, compromise safety, and even impact national security. Unlike traditional IT environments, where the focus is on confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA), OT in railways prioritizes reliability, availability, and public safety. Ensuring the safe movement of trains requires a cybersecurity strategy tailored to the unique needs of railway infrastructure.Critical OT Systems in RailwaysMughal highlights key OT components in railways that require cybersecurity protection:• Signaling Systems: These function like traffic lights for trains, ensuring safe distances between locomotives. Modern communication-based train control (CBTC) and European Rail Traffic Management Systems (ERTMS) are vulnerable to cyber intrusions.• Interlocking Systems: These systems prevent conflicting train movements, ensuring safe operations. As they become digitized, cyber risks increase.• Onboard OT Systems: Automatic Train Control (ATC) regulates speed and ensures compliance with signaling instructions. A cyberattack could manipulate these controls.• SCADA Systems: Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems oversee infrastructure operations. Any compromise here can impact an entire railway network.• Safety-Critical Systems: Fail-safe mechanisms like automatic braking and failover controls are vital in preventing catastrophic accidents.The increasing digitization and interconnection of these systems expand the attack surface, making cybersecurity a top priority for railway operators.Real-World Cyber Threats in RailwaysMughal discusses several significant cyber incidents that highlight vulnerabilities in railway cybersecurity:• 2023 Poland Attack: Nation-state actors exploited vulnerabilities in railway radio communication systems to send unauthorized emergency stop commands, halting trains across the country. The attack exposed weaknesses in authentication and encryption within OT communication protocols.• 2021 Iran Railway Incident: Hackers breached Iran's railway scheduling and digital message board systems, displaying fake messages and causing widespread confusion. While safety-critical OT systems remained unaffected, the attack disrupted operations and damaged public trust.• 2016 San Francisco Muni Ransomware Attack: A ransomware attack crippled the fare and scheduling system, leading to free rides for passengers and operational delays. Though IT systems were the primary target, the impact on OT operations was evident.These incidents underscore the urgent need for stronger authentication, encryption, and IT-OT segmentation to protect railway infrastructure.Cybersecurity Standards and Best Practices for Railways (links to resources below)To build resilient railway cybersecurity, Mughal emphasizes the importance of international standards:• IEC 62443: A globally recognized framework for securing industrial control systems, widely applied to OT environments, including railways. It introduces concepts such as network segmentation, risk assessment, and security levels.• TS 50701: A European standard specifically designed for railway cybersecurity, expanding on IEC 62443 with guidance for securing signaling, interlocking, and control systems.• EN 50126 (RAMS Standard): A safety-focused standard that integrates reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety (RAMS) into railway operations.Adopting these standards helps railway operators establish secure-by-design architectures that mitigate cyber risks.Looking Ahead: Strengthening Railway CybersecurityAs railway systems become more automated and interconnected with smart cities, vehicle transportation, and supply chain networks, cyber threats will continue to grow. Mughal stresses the need for industry collaboration between railway engineers and cybersecurity professionals to ensure that security is integrated into every stage of railway system design.He also emphasizes the importance of real-time OT threat monitoring, anomaly detection, and Security Operations Centers (SOCs) that understand railway-specific cyber risks. The industry must stay ahead of adversaries by adopting proactive security measures before a large-scale cyber incident disrupts critical transportation networks.The conversation makes it clear: cybersecurity is now a fundamental part of railway safety and reliability. As Mughal warns, it's not a question of if railway cyber incidents will happen, but when.To hear the full discussion, including insights into OT vulnerabilities, real-world case studies, and cybersecurity best practices, listen to this episode of Redefining Cybersecurity on ITSP Magazine.___________________________SponsorsImperva: https://itspm.ag/imperva277117988LevelBlue: https://itspm.ag/attcybersecurity-3jdk3ThreatLocker: https://itspm.ag/threatlocker-r974___________________________Watch this and other videos on ITSPmagazine's YouTube ChannelRedefining CyberSecurity Podcast with Sean Martin, CISSP playlist:

BONUS Product & Manufacturing News Report, December 12, 2024

Automation Chat

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2024 13:22

** Named “Best Podcast” for 3 Consecutive Years! 2022-2024 Apex Awards of Publication Excellence. In our bonus news report this month, The Journal's Executive Editor Theresa Houck's updates include life sciences market trends as well as new products announcements. Some of this episode's topics include: Fortinet's new innovation hub in Chicago. Integration of the Rockwell Automation NVIDIA Omniverse programming interfaces into the Rockwell Automation Emulate3D digital-twin software. Rockwell Automation & Microsoft's advanced cloud and AI solutions. Festo's suite of pneumatic systems safety products. HPS Smart Transformers from Hammond Power Solutions. ProSoft Technology's IEC 61850 ControlLogix module. Hardy Process Solutions' HI5069-WS Series weight modules for Rockwell Automation Compact5000 PLCs. And more. And as always, get your family-friendly, silly Joke of the Day. Resources from this episode: 1756 ControlLogix Integrated Motion Module Migration from AMCI. Hammond Power Solutions HPS Smart Transformers. IEC 61850 ControlLogix module from ProSoft Technology. Learn about HMS Networks. To subscribe to our 4 print magazines (Feb., May, July and Oct.), e-mail Anna Hicks at ahicks@endeavorbusinessmedia.com. Subscribe to our 4 digital magazines at http://rok.auto/thejournal-subscribe. Please share this episode with someone else who would benefit from it. And kindly leave us a 5-star rating and a review. Automation Chat is brought to you by The Journal From Rockwell Automation and Our PartnerNetwork magazine. Find us on YouTube. Find us on LinkedIn. Find us on Facebook. Find us on X (Twitter).

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#395: IEC 60601 Updates: What MedTech Professionals Need to Know for 2025 and Beyond

Global Medical Device Podcast powered by Greenlight Guru

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2024 42:04 Transcription Available

In this episode of the Global Medical Device Podcast, Etienne Nichols sits down with Leo Eisner, founder of Eisner Safety Consultants and a leading voice in IEC 60601 standards development. They unpack the upcoming revisions to the fourth edition of IEC 60601, focusing on the rationale behind these changes, their impact on medical device design, and how MedTech professionals can prepare for the future. Leo provides insights into the intricate process of updating global standards, shares practical advice for compliance, and discusses the role of risk management in ensuring safer, more effective medical devices.Key Timestamps[02:30] – Introducing Leo Eisner and his expertise in IEC 60601 and global standards.[06:45] – The complexities of updating IEC 60601 and its 12 working groups.[12:20] – Expected timeline for the fourth edition (2029-2030) and why companies need to plan now.[18:50] – Overview of the most significant upcoming changes, including wireless coexistence and integration of collateral standards.[27:00] – Practical advice for navigating new standards during product development.[36:15] – How to engage in the standards development process and submit comments.[48:30] – Benefits of proactive planning and test preparation for regulatory success.[53:45] – The importance of staying informed and embracing continuous learning in MedTech.Top Quotes from the Episode"The biggest mistake you can make is waiting too long to plan for changes. Compliance is about foresight." – Leo Eisner"IEC 60601 is often thought of as just an electrical standard, but it's so much more—it's about mitigating risks across all aspects of a device." – Leo Eisner"Standards aren't just rules; they're lessons learned from history, guiding us to safer, better devices." – Etienne NicholsKey TakeawaysLatest Trends in MedTech StandardsThe modular approach in the new IEC 60601 simplifies updates and aligns better with global regulations.Wireless coexistence and other cutting-edge technologies will soon become international requirements.Consolidating collateral standards improves consistency and reduces redundancies.Practical Tips for ComplianceBegin designing for new standards early, even before they are finalized.Stay informed by engaging with industry groups and standards organizations.Use test planning to streamline development and meet regulatory expectations efficiently.Questions to Ponder for the FutureHow will integrating advanced hazard mitigation strategies impact device innovation?What role will emerging technologies like AI and IoT play in future standards revisions?How can smaller MedTech companies effectively adapt to these significant changes?MedTech 101: Understanding IEC 60601For new listeners, IEC 60601 is a global standard that ensures the safety and effectiveness of medical electrical equipment. It encompasses requirements for design, labeling, testing, and risk management. With updates spanning usability, wireless technologies, and biocompatibility, it's essential for any MedTech company working with electrical devices.References and ResourcesGreenlight Guru – The QMS software designed exclusively for MedTech: Learn moreConnect with Leo Eisner – Founder of Eisner Safety Consultants and leading expert on IEC 60601:

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613. IEC PROFILE: Alison Merzel

Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 7, 2024 15:40

Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced independent educational consultant? MEET OUR GUEST Meet Alison Merzel. Alison Merzel is the founder of AHM Advising LLC, an independent educational consulting practice focused on helping high school students and families find their best-fit post-secondary educational options. Prior to launching her business in 2019, Alison was at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business for 15 years, most recently as the Senior Director of Graduate Recruiting and Admissions. Alison holds a BS from Northwestern University in Communications and Spanish and a Master of Labor and Human Resources from The Ohio State University. She has a certificate in Independent Educational Consulting from the UC Irvine Division of Continuing Education. She is a Wow Writing Workshop Certified College Essay Coach and completed the Gap Year Association's 2022 Counselor Institute. Alison is awaiting the results of her CEP assessment (Certified Educational Planner) and upon approval, will become just the 6th education professional in the state of Ohio to hold this designation. Alison is a professional member of IECA, the Independent Educational Consultants Association, where she serves as co-chair of the Jewish IEC Affinity Group and as a member of the College Tour subcommittee. She is also a member of NACAC, OACAC, and OASFAA and serves as an Advisory Board Member for College Planner Pro, software that is designed exclusively for IECs. Locally, Alison is a member of the Bexley Chamber of Commerce and sits on the Board of Trustees of Congregation Tifereth Israel where she serves as the Co-Chair of the synagogue's Personnel Committee. Alison and her husband, Jeff, have lived in Bexley for 17 years and have three children (17, 15, and 10) The Merzel family is not complete without mention of Marvin, an Australian Labradoodle, and Toby, a Cavapoo. Find Alison at www.ahmadvising.com. ABOUT THIS PODCAST Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our past episodes on the show page and keep up with our future ones by subscribing to our email newsletter. ABOUT YOUR HOSTS Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros and LEAP. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

PCCP – The Magic tool for SaMD in the US?

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2024

In this episode, Maria Diez from CMGMedDev is explaining to us the PCCP tool for SaMD and why it can help a lot. We will also review US vs EU regarding changes to SaMD. Who is Maria Diez? María Diez is a seasoned expert in Quality Assurance (QA) and Regulatory Affairs (RA) for medical devices and in vitro diagnostic devices (IVDs), with over a decade of professional experience in the field. Holding a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, María has specialized in developing and maintaining Quality Management Systems (QMS) in compliance with standards such as ISO 13485, ISO 14971, and IEC 62304. She also brings extensive expertise in ensuring compliance with international medical device regulations, including those of the FDA, MDR, and IVDR. Additionally, María has significant experience in integrating advanced technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity, into medical device software (MDSW) and Software as a Medical Device (SaMD). Currently, María serves as a QA/RA Consultant at CMG MedDev, where she assists medical device manufacturers in bringing safe and effective products to market. Her expertise includes preparing technical documentation for CE marking, managing regulatory submissions for non-European markets, and helping companies navigate evolving global regulatory landscapes. María's passion for education and innovation drives her active participation in industry conferences, where she shares her knowledge on AI-based MDSW/SaMD development and her experiences as a PRRC during the certification process. Who is Monir El Azzouzi? Monir El Azzouzi is the founder and CEO of Easy Medical Device a Consulting firm that is supporting Medical Device manufacturers for any Quality and Regulatory affairs activities all over the world. Monir can help you to create your Quality Management System, Technical Documentation or he can also take care of your Clinical Evaluation, Clinical Investigation through his team or partners. Easy Medical Device can also become your Authorized Representative and Independent Importer Service provider for EU, UK and Switzerland. Monir has around 16 years of experience within the Medical Device industry working for small businesses and also big corporate companies. He has now supported around 100 clients to remain compliant on the market. His passion to the Medical Device filed pushed him to create educative contents like, blog, podcast, YouTube videos, LinkedIn Lives where he invites guests who are sharing educative information to his audience. Visit easymedicaldevice.com to know more. Link Maria Diez LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/maría-diez-zaera-46460323 CMGMedDev website: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cmgmeddev/posts/ PCCP guidance US: https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/marketing-submission-recommendations-predetermined-change-control-plan-artificial https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/predetermined-change-control-plans-medical-devices Social Media to follow Monir El Azzouzi Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/melazzouzi Twitter: https://twitter.com/elazzouzim Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/easymedicaldevice Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/easymedicaldevice

IEC 60601-1-8 How to test your Medical Device alarms?