Use cable redundancy
The FC1028 EtherCAT card has independent EtherCAT interfaces that can be used for EtherCAT cable redundancy. Cable redundancy offers resilience for cabling. Interruptions of the EtherCAT communication due to wire break or unplugged LAN cables are avoided. Interference at the individual terminals is not intercepted by the cable redundancy.
Fig.8: Example configuration of a FC1028 with EtherCAT cable redundancy.In the example configuration the hardware is wired as an EtherCAT ring. For this EtherCAT ring, two EtherCAT masters of the FC1028 are occupied. This intercepts failures in the cabling beyond the adapter cable. In this way, for example, a wire break between the two EtherCAT Couplers has no effect on the EtherCAT communication.
Type | Description |
|---|---|
FC1028 | Is the EtherCAT master in the example. |
C9900-K921 | Adapter cable for FC1028. Breakout cable with one ix-Industrial® type A plug to 2 x Cat.6 RJ45 socket. With the help of the adapter cable, two EtherCAT masters are executed from one x-Industrial® type A interface. |
2 x EK1100 EtherCAT Couplers | The first EtherCAT Coupler forwards the EtherCAT signal to connected EtherCAT Terminals and to the second EK1100 EtherCAT Coupler via the second Ethernet interface. The second EtherCAT Coupler is connected to the adapter cable via the second Ethernet interface and thus to another EtherCAT master. |
EtherCAT Terminals | Any number of EtherCAT Terminals connected to the EtherCAT Coupler. |
Type | Description |
|---|---|
FC1428 | Is the EtherCAT master in the example. |
ZK1096-969A-0005 | Adapter cable for FC1428. Cable with one ix-Industrial® type A plug to 1 x Cat.6 RJ45 socket. |
2 x EK1100 EtherCAT Couplers | The first EtherCAT Coupler forwards the EtherCAT signal to connected EtherCAT Terminals and to the second EK1100 EtherCAT Coupler via the second Ethernet interface. The second EtherCAT Coupler is connected to the adapter cable via the second Ethernet interface and thus to another EtherCAT master. |
EtherCAT Terminals | Any number of EtherCAT Terminals connected to the EtherCAT Coupler. |
Requirements:
- For TwinCAT 2, you have to install and license the TS622x | TwinCAT EtherCAT Redundancy supplement on the Embedded PC: https://www.beckhoff.com/TS622x
- In TwinCAT 3, the supplement is already included and only has to be licensed.
- Hardware wired as EtherCAT ring (see Fig.: Example configuration of a FC1028 with EtherCAT cable redundancy).
Configure EtherCAT cable redundancy as follows:
- 1. Click on an EtherCAT master that you want to configure for cable redundancy on the left side in the tree view.
- 2. Click on the EtherCAT tab, then Advanced Settings.
- 3. Click on Redundancy on the left in the tree structure.
- 4. Click on the Adapter Reference option and then select a second EtherCAT master from the drop-down menu.
- You have successfully configured cable redundancy. The EtherCAT slaves configured for cable redundancy are displayed in the Online tab.
The state of the individual EtherCAT slaves can be found in the State column. If, for example, the cable connection between the two EK1100 EtherCAT Couplers is interrupted, their state changes. The message "LINK_MIS C" and "LINK_MIS A" then appears in the State column.
Although the connection between the EtherCAT Couplers is interrupted, the EtherCAT Terminals connected to the EK1100 EtherCAT Couplers do not have a fault.
If the cable connection is interrupted at the same point without cable redundancy, a fault is displayed for the terminals in the State column.