ST71 is a tutorial kit for Foundation Fieldbus (FF) transmitter developers and for system integrators that would like to learn about the powerful capabilities of the FF technology . It is intended for instrument devices that support Modbus RTU. It comprises a PC program, providing the human interface and a transmitter circuit board (T710). The communication between the T710 and the target instrument is based on Modbus. The FF module will operate as a Master for the internal communication.

ST71 is a tool suited for learning the FF protocol and to provide guidance for an instrument vendor that shall specify FF functionality in own products.

The Starter kit comes with the National Instruments (NI) configurator for a laptop PC. It also contains a USB card and the Device Description, DD, for the T710. The software will instruct the user how to access parameters in the device from the Function-, Resource- and the Transducer block.

The Transducer block contains the dynamic variables and the set-up parameters for connecting a link to a Modbus instrument. Parameters such as data rate, parity and address of the dynamic variable, can be configured.

The NI configurator is used for set-up, test and fault detection. It runs the DD and allows all parameters defined in the DD to be

observed and altered. The configurator allows:

• Instrument configuration
• Network parameter configuration
• Control loop design, including routing of traffic and timing definitions.
• Down loading of schedules to all connected devices.
• Operating in the control loop as a LAS (Link Active Scheduler)