Detailed description of Process Data tab

Sync Manager

Lists the configuration of the Sync Manager (SM).
If the EtherCAT device has a mailbox, SM0 is used for the mailbox output (MbxOut) and SM1 for the mailbox input (MbxIn).
SM2 is used for the output process data (outputs) and SM3 (inputs) for the input process data.

If an input is selected, the corresponding PDO assignment is displayed in the PDO Assignment list below.

PDO Assignment

PDO assignment of the selected Sync Manager. All PDOs defined for this Sync Manager type are listed here:

If the output Sync Manager (outputs) is selected in the Sync Manager list, all RxPDOs are displayed.
If the input Sync Manager (inputs) is selected in the Sync Manager list, all TxPDOs are displayed.

The selected entries are the PDOs involved in the process data transfer. In the tree diagram of the System Manager these PDOs are displayed as variables of the EtherCAT device. The name of the variable is identical to the Name parameter of the PDO, as displayed in the PDO list. If an entry in the PDO assignment list is deactivated (not selected and greyed out), this indicates that the input is excluded from the PDO assignment. In order to be able to select a greyed out PDO, the currently selected PDO has to be deselected first.

	Activation of PDO assignment If you have changed the PDO assignment, in order to activate the new PDO assignment, the EtherCAT slave has to run through the PS status transition cycle (from pre-operational to safe-operational) once (see Online tab), and the System Manager has to reload the EtherCAT slaves ( button for TwinCAT 2 or button for TwinCAT 3)

PDO list

List of all PDOs supported by this EtherCAT device. The content of the selected PDOs is displayed in the PDO Content list. The PDO configuration can be modified by double-clicking on an entry.

Column	Description
Index	PDO index.
Size	Size of the PDO in bytes.
Name	Name of the PDO. If this PDO is assigned to a Sync Manager, it appears as a variable of the slave with this parameter as the name.
Flags	F	Fixed content: The content of this PDO is fixed and cannot be changed by the System Manager.
Flags	M	Mandatory PDO. This PDO is mandatory and must therefore be assigned to a Sync Manager! Consequently, this PDO cannot be deleted from the PDO Assignment list
SM	Sync Manager to which this PDO is assigned. If this entry is empty, this PDO does not take part in the process data traffic.
SU	Sync unit to which this PDO is assigned.

PDO Content

Indicates the content of the PDO. If flag F (fixed content) of the PDO is not set the content can be modified.

Download

If the device is intelligent and has a mailbox, the configuration of the PDO and the PDO assignments can be downloaded to the device. This is an optional feature that is not supported by all EtherCAT slaves.

PDO Assignment

If this check box is selected, the PDO assignment that is configured in the PDO Assignment list is downloaded to the device on startup. The required commands to be sent to the device can be viewed in the Startup tab.

PDO Configuration

If this check box is selected, the configuration of the respective PDOs (as shown in the PDO list and the PDO Content display) is downloaded to the EtherCAT slave.