My boss is planning to implement DeviceNet on some of our products. I've looked through Google and odva.org but I can't seem to find any specific technical detail which tells me what and how I should do.
Here is my amateur understanding after reading random articles on the Internet. I would appreciate it if someone here can make them clear for me.
- DeviceNet, or CIP in general, is in fact a closed protocol, despite the "open" stereotype in the company name "ODVA". You have to pay for the specification. Is this correct?
- I can find a lot of "tutorials" about DeviceNet, but I can't really do anything practical without the official DeviceNet specification, right?
- Is Vendor ID mandatory? If I somehow know how to talk DeviceNet, will the target refuse to talk to me without a valid Vendor ID?
- I know CAN bus. Once I understand DeviceNet protocol, it's going to be purely coding stuff, right?
- My company sells UPS monitoring hardware. We are not selling millions but maybe a few hundreds of thousands of devices per year. Is DeviceNet worth it?
- How many software devs does it take to implement DeviceNet on a finalized product?
Thank you.
