Device emulation

During device emulation, and EtherCAT slave that differs from the bridge terminal is emulated on the bridge side. Physically, the EL6695 bridge terminal remains the EtherCAT slave and always be reset to this original state.

The EtherCAT slave to be emulated is loaded on the selected EL6695 side in the form of the ESI. The EL6695 takes over this data and to the outside then emulates the slave in the form of identity data, PDO and CoE. However, this only applies to the formal representation, without (temporal) behavior, for which the firmware of the EL6695 would have to be modified. The “behavior” of the emulated slave has to be mapped via the other side and the data supplied to/from it.

Since the slave represented in this way also has to pass the EtherCAT ETG conformance test in EmulationMode, the user must ensure that only valid/certified/certifiable ESI are loaded to the EL6695 in EmulationMode. Therefore the ETG rules ETG1000.6 (Mapping) and ETG2000 (ESI Specification) have to be respected.

The EmulationMode can be used on one side or both sides.

Device emulation 1:

Extension (user interface in TwinCAT)

The so-called extension (user interface in TwinCAT) is no longer available in the emulated slave.

For further information please contact Beckhoff support, providing pertinent data (TwinCAT version, required performance values, cycle time, data quantities etc.)