Banner Engineering Corporation

Mark Richard Rue

Robert T Fayfield

Charles Dolezalek

William Theunissen

Robert Schlosser

Nick Olsen

Matthew Schmitt

David Franke

Kent Dahlen

Luke Karnas

Arthur Padget

Sabrina Kawalec

Paul Fabian

Apparatus and associated methods relate to a stackable distributed communication and control hub (DCCH) configured to provide a wide viewing angle for instantly inspecting multiple connections when multiple DCCHs are stacked. In an illustrative example, a DCCH may include multiple connection ports distributed on one or more edge surfaces. An offset bracket, for example, may couple two DCCHs, each at a coupling surface of the corresponding DCCH. Upon coupling, the DCCHs are held at substantially parallel planes. For example, a first DCCH is offset from a second DCCH in two directions. In a first direction, respective planes are offset along a vertical axis by a predetermined first offset. In a second direction, the DCCHs are offset by a predetermined second offset, orthogonal to the first direction. Various embodiments may advantageously allow visual status of the connection ports visible in at least one viewing angle along the vertical axis.

Distributed communication and control system using concurrent multi-channel master unit preliminary class

Apparatus and associated methods relate to a networked system having a master and multiple slaves, where each slave stores a unique (actual) slave address and a non-unique (virtual) slave address in memory, such that each slave is configured to respond to request messages addressed to the slave's non-unique slave address if a sensor device associated with the is in an active state when the slave receives the request message. In an illustrative example, the networked system may be a Fieldbus-style network (e.g., a network implementing the Modbus protocol). A sensor device may be a break-beam, capacitive touch, or push-button device, for example. An output indicator/actuator may be associated with a sensor device to indicate the status of the sensor device to a user. A networked system implementing sensor-activated response gating may beneficially expand the number of slave devices on the network while achieving low latency response times.

Modbus system having actual and virtual slave addresses and slave sensors

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Plymouth, MN, United States of America

Mark Richard Rue