Moving DeviceNet Data to a MicroLogix…Yes It’s Simple

No, this isn’t a torture device used at Guantonamo. And no, it’s not an image I created using my MAC (Truth be told I wouldn’t know how to turn a MAC on). It’s the 100th Anniversary of the Swiss Army Knife. It’s a certified Guiness Book of World Records, largest Swiss Army Knife ever produced. 80 Tools. 110 different operations. 110 operations – that’s probably how many you’ll need if your kids leave it on the living room floor and you step on it!

Quite a device. If a guy was talented (let’s me out), you could build a shopping center with this knife. Just drop him on a desert island with this knife, come back 90 days later and you’d find a shopping center.

But if you look at it, it’s really pretty hard to use. It would probably take me about 10 minutes to find and isolate the right tool. I’d have ten puncture wounds from futtsing with all the other tools. Not my first choice for a tool. Hard to use, complicated with too many features.

On the other hand I could give you the lowly butter knife:

What an incredible tool this is! It’s a combination screwdriver, hammer, box opener, paper weight and butter and jelly spreading device. It’s incredibly easy to use. Even if you use it upside down or invert it you can still get the job done.

That’s the point I was making today to one of our distributors. Our newest 460 product takes data from a series of DeviceNet devices and writes them into a Micrologix PLC. It takes data out of the Micrologix PLC and writes the data into those DeviceNet devices. And no, it doesn’t take 2 days, a 237 page manual, 4 calls to technical support and your lucky rabbits foot to make it work. It’s all web server based. Just link files in the PLC to the DeviceNet data for each slave. Less than 10 minutes to setup and check out. That’s why we say “The Hardest Part is Opening The Box”.