Changing the slave parameters in the CoE directory

During commissioning it may be necessary to change the CoE parameters. The CoE parameters (CAN over EtherCAT) can be changed in the "CoE-Online" tab of the EtherCAT slave.

Online access:

The terminal is really addressable on the bus. The real CoE directory from the terminal is displayed. Some objects in it are writable and can be changed. Here is the image from the EL4038 from the commissioning example:

Changing the slave parameters in the CoE directory 1:
Access to the CoE parameters in the TwinCAT System Manager, Online

In particular, the objects 0x80n0 (n stands for the channel, n = 0,1,2,3 ...) are accessible for setting. The changed values are stored fail-safe in the terminal.

Offline description:

If the terminal is not really addressable on the bus, only the so-called offline description of the CoE directory is displayed. This offline description is included in the ESI description (XML) for precisely this purpose. The parameters cannot be changed, but they can be used to define startup commands, for example.

Changing the slave parameters in the CoE directory 2:
Access to the CoE parameters in the TwinCAT System Manager, Offline

Notice

Changes in the CoE directory, in the case of exchange

So that, in the case of exchanging an EtherCAT slave, the CoE parameters are set correctly in the new slave, changes on the customer side must be entered in the start-up list.

Notice

Changes in the CoE directory, program access

The CoE parameters can also be read and written during operation (insofar as it makes sense) by the PLC using corresponding control commands.

Note that CoE settings are usually stored in the slave. Each change results in a save procedure. The memory in the device has a limited electrical lifespan of, for example, a few 100,000 save procedures.

If you want to change settings repeatedly over a long period of time, use the NoCoeStorage function.

If this is not available in the respective device, it must be expected that the memory will fail in the long term.