A one-day course designed as an add-on to the Certified PROFIBUS Installer Course covering the practical techniques of fault finding on “operational” PROFIBUS networks.

Who is this course aimed at?

The one-day Certified PROFIBUS Installer Course gives an excellent introduction to PROFIBUS technology and how to properly layout and install networks. The verification and faultfinding methods taught are however generally limited to non operational networks and static testing.

The 4/5-day Certified PROFIBUS Engineer Course covers the full in-depth theory and practice of PROFIBUS operation and faultfinding. Although it is desirable to have one or two fully qualified PROFIBUS Engineers, it is by no means essential that all maintenance personnel be so highly trained.

The PROFIBUS Commissioning and Maintenance course provides an intermediate level of training for technicians and engineers who are involved with commissioning, health checking and fault finding on operational PROFIBUS systems.

What does the course cover?

This is a practical course based around a working PROFIBUS network. Each pair of students has a rack of devices and laptop with ProfiTrace Ultra for PROFIBUS device exercising and faultfinding.

Techniques taught on the course include the use of ProfiTrace Ultra to diagnose and locate network faults, device faults and I/O problems. Students also learn how to use the built-in digital storage oscilloscope to diagnose and locate a wide range of cable, connection and device faults.

The course covers how to health check a working PROFIBUS system and quickly troubleshoot and locate problems. The course is very practical, based on hands-on exercises using a working system on which faults can be systematically introduced.

 

 

 

 

Why must I do the Installer Course first?

The Maintenance Course teaches how to find and locate faults in working PROFIBUS systems; however the technician must have a good understanding of the types of faults that can occur and their causes. The Certified PROFIBUS Installer Course provides the basic grounding which is essential to understanding the more advanced techniques covered in this course.

The course is available for on-site delivery and at selected locations around the country for up to 12 people. The course can also be delivered overseas providing a cost effective alternative to sending staff to the UK.

As an optional addition to the on-site training, we can offer half a day of on-plant training for the engineers who take the Installer and Maintenance Course. This can involve supervised checking of a working system at the customer’s site.

Note that responsibility for plant production and personnel safety will remain the responsibility of the Company should this option be chosen. Please see the VTC Legal statements and conditions on the downloads page.

Course options

Because this course is not certified or accredited by PROFIBUS International, the syllabus can be altered and optimised to meet your exact requirements. For example many companies in the manufacturing sector only use DP devices, so we can drop the PA material and concentrate more on the DP techniques that will be of use to you. On the other hand some companies in the process sector use mainly PA devices and really require to be able to diagnose problems on the PA cable and use PA specific tools such as PA Class-2 masters and engineering tools.

When the course is open rather than being company specific, we deliver a balanced course which covers both DP and PA technology. We teach how to use ProfiTrace (a modern and very flexible analyser, fault-finding and health-checking tool) on DA and PA systems. We teach how the built-in oscilloscope can be used not only to diagnose problems, but also to locate the fault along the cable.

Companies that have undertaken on-site Installer + Maintenance training with VTC

Alstec Ltd	Alstom Grid	Astra Zeneca
Atkins Water	Arla Foods	Artenius Packaging
BA (Heathrow)	BAE Systems	Ball Packaging
Belcom	Black & Veatch	Boulting Group
Bridges Electrical	Brisbane Water (Australia)	Castlemaine (Australia)
Dairy Crest, Diageo	DHL	Dounreay Site Restoration
Fanuc Robotics	Field Systems Designs Ltd	GE Healthcare
General Panel Systems	Fives Cinetic Landis	Honda
IC Electrical	Iggesund Paperboard	Imtech Process
Innovia Films Ltd	ITT Water and Waste Water	J N Bentley
Johnson Mathey	Kinnerton Confectionery	Knauf Insulation
KMI Plus	Lapp cables	L J Monks
Lloyd Morris	Manchester Airport	Masterfoods
May Gurney	Muller Dairies	National Oilwell Varco
Northern Ireland Water	Nissan	Novartis
Novartis Vaccines	Ocado	Park Electrical
Ross-shire Engineering	Sabic Europe Petrochemicals	SCA Hygiene Ltd
Siemens	South East Water	South West Water
Tecker Ltd	Tetra Pak	Thames Water
Tycon	UK Gas Technologies	Unilever
United Utilities	Vanderlande	Vauxhall Motors
Veolia	Watson-Marlow	Wessex Water
Westbury Dairies	Yorkshire Water

A sample of comments from previous attendees

• “Very practical course, I am sure the techniques that were taught will be useful.”
• “All I’ve got to do now is convince my company to buy me a ProfiTrace kit!”
• “The course was excellent, you are a great teacher Andy”
• “Thank you. Our engineering team have really benefitted from your experience and teaching”
• “Great course, the extra half-day on our plant was the icing on the cake.”

See downloads for printable course leaflet and Training &Consultancy price list.