Today I participated in a web event from National Instruments. The topic was Compact Fieldpoint. The first time I heard about this was while I was browsing NI's website. It never manged to make it in their 2003 catalog so I never noticed it while I perused the new catalog...
Before I go on about CFP (compact fieldpoint), i'd like to say that I really like these new web events that NI's started recently. It allows you to hear a real person's voice and you can send questions to the presenter. In the last 3 that I attended, most of my questions were answered on the spot and any remaining were taken care of via email. I like it. This is a nice way to do product training as well. I'm considering this as an option to my distant customers to reduce their training costs.
CFP is the next generation of fieldpoint product. I wish I had something substantial to discuss here and I was hoping for something impressive. It turns out that CFP is pretty much the same as FP. The main dramatic difference is in the packaging. They borrowed many characteristics of PLC's such as the packaging, ruggedization and interfacing. Unlike the PLC however, the controller is PC based (X86 based) which allows standard interfacing via ethernet and allows for web-based monitoring and control. Couldn't they uprade the processor to something faster?
My main interest in CFP was to see if it improved at all in the communication speed between the IO modules and the controller. I've worked with FP and found that the control loop capabilities were slow and they slowed down even further with the more modules you had attached to the bus. In CFP they've improved the backplane design but only physically, the speeds are identical to the standard fieldpoint hardware. This is shame since I really don't like buying an expensive PXI chassis jif I only need slightly better loop speeds. The presenter empasized that CFP can handle loop speeds up to 1KHz. However, the qualifier there is "dependant on the IO modules you are using". Another qualifier should be, depending on how good your programming is as well.
Even though the speed hasn't improved, there is still a few things to be excited about. They added a compact flash slot (on the expensive model) on the controller, this allows for larger sized data to be stored. Just recently some manufacturers announced 1GB flash cards so this is a welcomed addition. To be used in stand-alone installations sometimes requires LCD MMI interfaces to the controller. NI helps achieve this by providing several com port interfaces on the controller.
You can really see NI trying to get into many more industrial applications where larger temperature extreames and vibrations are a reality. Thes units are more compact - hence the name - and can handle more abuse. I have several customers who are devoted to PLC's and I am looking forward to switching them over.
The thing that I liked was the packaging. I have dreaded FP because of the crappy snap-together cludge. The modules would come apart and you could pull them off of the terminal bases slightly so that they stopped communicating. No more problems with that! The removable CF and the ribbon cable headers are also pretty cool!
