Profibus Using Multimeter

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YO!

Certainly, you can check continuity or resistance of a Profibus cable with a multimeter. A pre-startup cable check usually involves checking PA+ to PA- (which should be infinite resistance) for a short. However, these types of wiring/cabling checks are only a fraction of the task needed to troubleshoot a Profibus communications problem.

There are several documents on the web that cover Profibus troubleshooting.
http://www.automation.siemens.com/w1/efiles/weighing/techn_publications/Profibus_en.pdf

a power point:
http://www.profibus.com/uploads/media/pxddamkey%5B9099%5D_PROFIBUS%20health%20checking-Andy%20Verwer.pdf

People tell me that unless a plant has a service contract with a service firm that can troubleshoot Profibus, that buying a Profibus network analyzer is usually a required for maintaining a Profibus network,

It depends on what your trouble is...

For the most common profibus cable problems a multimeter in the hands of a good technician/engineer is sufficient to solve these problems. To solve every possible cabling problem requires more instrumentation and a far better understanding of profibus communication.

Only if you are interested in cable faults such as shorts, opens, and crossed wires. It's no different than troubleshooting CAT5 ethernet cable, you can find the wiring faults, but if you want to troubleshoot the communication over the cable you will need the proper network analyzer.

This presentation may help you understand why.