TwinCAT Quick Start

TwinCAT is a development environment for real-time control including a multi PLC system, NC axis control, programming and operation. The whole system is mapped through this environment and enables access to a programming environment (including compilation) for the controller. Individual digital or analog inputs or outputs can also be read or written directly, in order to verify their functionality, for example.

For further information, please refer to http://infosys.beckhoff.com:

Devices contain the relevant terminals for the actual configuration. All configuration data can be entered directly via editor functions (offline) or via the `scan function (online):

The following relationship is envisaged between the user PC and individual control elements:

TwinCAT Quick Start 1:
Relationship between user side (commissioning) and installation

The user inserting of certain components (I/O device, terminal, box, ...) is the same in TwinCAT 2 and TwinCAT 3. In the following descriptions, only the "online" process is used.

Example configuration (actual configuration)

Based on the following example configuration, the subsequent subsections describe the procedure for TwinCAT 2 and TwinCAT 3:

TwinCAT Quick Start 2:
Control configuration with Embedded PC, input (EL1004) and output (EL2008)

Note that all combinations of a configuration are possible; for example, the EL1004 terminal could also be connected after the coupler, or the EL2008 terminal could additionally be connected to the CX2040 on the right, in which case the EK1100 coupler wouldn’t be necessary.