Installation of the TwinCAT real-time driver
In order to assign real-time capability to a standard Ethernet port of an IPC controller, the Beckhoff real-time driver has to be installed on this port under Windows.
This can be done in several ways. One option is described here.
In the System Manager call up the TwinCAT overview of the local network interfaces via Options → Show Real Time Ethernet Compatible Devices.
This have to be called up by the Menü “TwinCAT” within the TwinCAT 3 environment:
The following dialog appears:
Interfaces listed under “Compatible devices” can be assigned a driver via the “Install” button. A driver should only be installed on compatible devices.
A Windows warning regarding the unsigned driver can be ignored.
Alternatively an EtherCAT-device can be inserted first of all as described in chapter Offline configuration creation, section “Creating the EtherCAT device” in order to view the compatible ethernet ports via its EtherCAT properties (tab „Adapter“, button „Compatible Devices…“):
TwinCAT 3: the properties of the EtherCAT device can be opened by double click on “Device .. (EtherCAT)” within the Solution Explorer under “I/O”:
After the installation the driver appears activated in the Windows overview for the network interface (Windows Start → System Properties → Network)
A correct setting of the driver could be:
Other possible settings have to be avoided:
