{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Manufacturing Hub","title":"Ep. 263 - Why Industrial Protocols Win on Business Not Technical Merit, with Horner Automation","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3837,"description":"Industrial network protocols decide whether a machine talks or stays silent. Chuck from Horner Automation breaks down how they win, fade, and converge.Chuck has spent 36 years at Horner Automation and lived through what the industry once called the fieldbus wars. Before Horner became known for its all in one controllers, it spent a decade building specialty IO modules for GE Fanuc during the era of DeviceNet, SDS, InterBus S, PROFIBUS, and CANopen. His core argument is that most of those early protocols were technically fine. The ones that became standards won on the commercial weight of the companies backing them, not on superior specifications, with EtherCAT a rare exception that succeeded largely on technical merit.Trust is the recurring theme. Industry adopts slowly, and for years Ethernet was dismissed as too unreliable and not deterministic enough for control until Ethernet/IP, PROFINET, and Modbus TCP proved themselves. Today the market has settled around a big four set of protocols, and Chuck does not expect it to narrow further. For high speed motion he points to EtherCAT and PROFINET IRT as the implementations he most respects, since both step away from standard Ethernet at the device level to reach submillisecond timing.The episode is also a reality check on building your own hardware. Chuck and Dave describe how custom development routinely costs teams hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, and how the real trap is obsolescence and maintenance rather than the first build. On the product side, the standout is FPD-Link, a serialization technology borrowed from automotive that carries video, touch, and power over one coaxial cable. Working with Safe Fleet, a maker of ambulances and fire trucks, Horner now mounts rugged displays up to seven meters from the PLC while still programming everything as one device.Looking ahead, Chuck argues that every PLC should now be treated as a data device first, because digitizing the process is the prerequisite...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/yoKAvzBXZ3YjQTekFk7KFGXeuwJ29WgXvop3dVEfhLs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzE3MjEzLzE2MDk0/MzA1OTgtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}