Introduction
EK1501 EtherCAT coupler with ID switch, multimode fiber-optic connection
The EK1501 coupler connects the EtherCAT Device Protocol with the EtherCAT Terminals (ELxxxx/ESxxxx/EMxxxx). One station consists of a coupler, any number of EtherCAT Terminals and a bus end terminal, e.g. EL9011.
The coupler converts the telegrams from Ethernet 100BASE-FX to E-bus signal representation in passing with minimum latency. The upper Ethernet interface is used to connect the coupler to the network; the lower SC socket serves for the optional connection of further EtherCAT devices in the same strand.
The coupler supplies the connected terminals with the necessary E-bus current for communication. The coupler can supply a maximum of 5 V/2 A. Power feed terminals (e.g. EL9410) must be integrated if more current is required.
In the EtherCAT network, the coupler is used at an arbitrary place in the Ethernet signal transmission range (100BASE-FX). The coupler thereby processes exclusively unaddressed MAC Broadcast telegrams of the type EtherCAT Device Protocol from the EtherCAT master. Since directed addressing via MAC Unicast or IP addressing is not used, neither a switch nor a router can be used.
The multimode glass fiber connection enables distances of up to 2 km between two couplers.
The coupler supports the HotConnect technique; see the basic EtherCAT documentation regarding this. The characteristics of the EK1501 in relation to this are:
- the ID can be set on the device via three rotary selection switches within the range 0..4095 (hexadecimal)
- the ID is readable online by the EtherCAT master via the process data
- if the EtherCAT master supports HotConnect, then an I/O group can be adopted dynamically into the EtherCAT communication. This group can then be located at any position within the EtherCAT network. Variable topologies are therefore easily implementable.