Multi-timestamp

The multi-timestamp capability opens up new application possibilities for digital inputs:

• All channels operate completely independently of one another
• Each channel is capable of sampling not only one, but up to 32 signal edges (“events”) per cycle
• Each channel has its own buffer. Events are held in the buffer, if more signal edge changes arrive at the input during a cycle than are retrieved via the process data. The buffer can be sent continuously to the controller via the cyclic process data. A handshake mode is also possible – thus no signals to the controller are lost in the event of communication errors.
• The process data size can be configured individually for each channel, i.e. how many timestamped events per cycle are to be retrieved from the channel by the PLC
• These functions require a process image that differs from the process image of devices with standard sampling. For reasons of compatibility with the existing user software, however, it is possible to switch to a compatible process image (without the new functions).
• Sampling of the input state 0/1 takes place based on a microcycle of several µs, depending on the selected setting, i.e. significantly faster than the EtherCAT bus cycle time
• The timestamp allocated to a signal edge detected in this way is the start time of the microcycle in which it was sampled
• An adjustable digital filter can be enabled for each channel which blanks signals that are too short (spikes)
• In this way significantly more signal changes can be sampled with timestamp during each cycle, and no event information is lost in the buffer