The EAP Device Configuration (EDC) File
The EAP Device Configuration (EDC) takes place with the help of TwinCAT. At least the EAP device itself has to be created via TwinCAT so that an instance of the EAP device is generated accordingly when starting TwinCAT. The creation of TxFrames, Tx/RxProcessData, Tx/RxPDOs and Tx/RxVariables can then also be carried out subsequently by an ADS-Client application. TwinCAT must be in Run mode for this. In most cases, however, a TwinCAT EAP device is completely configured via TwinCAT and started as described in chapter Creation of an EAP configuration and Configuration of an EAP device.
A configurator with a graphical user interface (GUI) – the TwinCAT EAP Configurator (Product description TE1610) – has been developed for the online configuration of an EAP device or an entire network of EAP devices. This configurator enables the graphical representation of all EAP devices in the network and their communication connections with one another. Also, each EAP device can be configured via the GUI.
A configuration that has been created in TwinCAT and to which an EDC file has been exported contains all the information required when importing into the configurator in order to display the current configuration of the EAP device. Documentation on the TwinCAT EAP configurator can be found in the Beckhoff Information System under TE1610 EAP Configurator.