On Tuesday 06 June 2023 at 14:26:03, Didier Kryn wrote:

> Le 06/06/2023 à 14:24, Dan Purgert via Dng a écrit :
> >
> > Industrial sensor "networks" tend to be serial protocols that are "not
> > ethernet" (CANBUS, MODBUS, some vendor-proprietary thing, etc.), given
> > the overheads necessary for ethernet in general (cost, complexity,
> > etc.).
> >
> > Then, once everything is aggregated at the main control panel of the
> > machine, the machine will then potentially talk ethernet to the rest of
> > the production floor (or rather probably some master control
> > dashboard).
> >
> >> [...]
> >>
> >> This is what the network is for - - - for oversight control and
> >> assessment. Can I use a 192.168.0.0/16 network to run something like
> >> this?
> >
> > Sensors tend to already speak one of a few generally well-defined
> > protocols (e.g. SPI, I2C, some variation of 1-wire, or even analog
> > values, amongst other things), so why not just use those options instead
> > of needing an intermediary controller to cram their data into ethernet
> > frames?
>

>      This seems to me the most sensible option, most certainly cheaper
> than Ethernet.

I also completely agree that:

(a) this is the way things are commonly done
(b) for very good reasons
(c) which include simplicity and cheapness

Nobody even seems to have mentioned the power aspects of this setup yet, and I
think trying to implement sufficient devices to convert individual sensor
readings into ethernet, along with sufficient switches to connect everything
together, would require a very substantial amount of electricity.

Aggregation devices such as Dan has outlined, with a consequentially far
smaller network, would be a lot less demanding on power requirements.


Antony.

--
The words "e pluribus unum" on the Great Seal of the United States are from a
poem by Virgil entitled "Moretum", which is about cheese and garlic salad
dressing.

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