Lenze PLC Designer PLC Designer (R3-1) - Manual (Page 894)

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Device Editors
892 DMS 4.1 EN 03/2011 TD29
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14.3 EtherCat Device Editor
The 'EtherCAT' plug-in provides dialogs for the configuration of EtherCAT Master and
Slave modules inserted in the device tree of a project in the Devices view window.
These dialogs will be added to the standard Device Editor dialogs.
The EtherCAT modules configuration initially is determined by the device description
files of the used master and slave devices and might be modified by the user in the
configuration editor dialogs. However, for standard applications and for the purpose of
an as easy as possible handling, the configuration to a large extent can be automatized
by choosing the "Autoconfig" mode.
Notice the possibility to access master and slaves and to modify configuration
parameters also in operational mode by using master and slave instances as well as
modules of the EtherCAT library.
General on EtherCAT
EtherCAT, the open real-time Ethernet network, allows real-time performance because
it updates 1000 distributed I/Os in 30 µs or 100 axis every 100 µs using twisted pair or
fiber optic cable. Line, tree or star topology are supported. There is a bus-master and
slaves.
An Ethernet packet can be processed on the fly instead of getting received, then
interpreted and copied as process data at every connection. The FMMU (fieldbus
memory management unit) in each slave node reads the data addressed to it, while
the telegram is forwarded to the next device. Similarly, input data is inserted while the
telegram passes through. The telegrams are only delayed by a few nanoseconds.
Addressing of the Ethernet terminals can be in any order because the data sequence is
independent of the physical order. Broadcast, Multicast and communication between
slaves are possible.
Accurate synchronization, which is for example needed in applications where several
servo axes carry out coordinated movements simultaneously, is possible by accurate
alignment of distributed clocks. Those in contrast to fully synchronous communication
have a high degree of tolerance within the communication system.