What is an Application Profile?
PROFIsafe, PROFIdrive, PROFIenergy… these terms are pretty common in the PI world. How are they used in the real world? And how do they actually work? What is the definition of an application profile?
Application Profiles
PROFIdrive Application Profile
What is PROFIdrive? PROFIdrive is a vendor-neutral application profile from PROFIBUS and PROFINET International (PI) which is focused on drives, encoders, motors, and their applications, which range from simple to very demanding motion control tasks. It supports both PROFIBUS and PROFINET technologies. PROFINET allows scalable update times starting from 31.25μs and a jitter of less than 1μs for the most demanding […]
PROFIdrive Application Class 1
When we talk about PROFIdrive, it’s always fun to use high-speed servos, CNC milling, and 3-D printing as application examples. But those applications are only some of the ways we use motors in the real world. Every day, millions of motors and drives are dedicated to pumping, blowing, and turning at a fixed speed. That’s what Application Class 1 drives […]
PROFIdrive Application Class 3
An Application Class 3 (AC3) PROFIdrive device is a “Positioning Mode” drive, and it builds on the concepts of an AC1 device. However, instead of commanding a drive to move at a desired speed, now the controller asks the drive to move to a desired position. An AC3 device, as with AC1, handles all of the feedback from the positioning […]
PROFIdrive Application Class 4
PROFIdrive Application Class 4 (AC4) drives are speed-controlled drives. Like AC1, a controller can command the drive to spin a a given speed. However, AC4 drives are typically used with high-performance servos rather than the fans or pump motors AC1 is used with. Because of this high-performance use case, AC4 drives provide a position control loop and cede some of […]
The PROFIenergy Profile
After learning about what profiles are, it’s time to take a look at one of the several profiles for PROFINET. PROFIenergy is one of the easiest profiles to implement across a range of devices, from cameras to motors. PROFIenergy: A Big Deal PROFIenergy operates as a programming API, allowing application engineers to use common code blocks in PLCs to control […]