Fieldbus cards for industrial PCs

Mini PCI fieldbus cards for Profibus, CANopen, DeviceNet, and Ethernet networks are part of Beckhoff Automation’s push to create the smallest possible industrial PC.

By Control Engineering Staff April 23, 2007

Mini PCI fieldbus cards for Profibus, CANopen, DeviceNet, and Ethernet networks are part of Beckhoff Automation’s push to create the smallest possible industrial PC. Small PC size saves control cabinet space, says the company, but, like standard PCI fieldbus cards, the interfaces are optimized for fast controllers and real-time tasks. Now mini PCI cards can be used in such IPCs as Beckhoff’s C69xx cabinet PCs and CP62xx and CP72xx control panel PCs to integrate additional fieldbus technologies. When Ethernet Mini PCI cards are used, the IPCs contain a third available Ethernet port with 10 Mbit/s, 100 Mbit/s, or 1,000 Mbit/s communication. A gigabit port is available for connecting higher-level networks. The fieldbus cards also come with optional NOVRAM.

www.beckhoffautomation.com

Beckhoff Automation