Overview

The TwinCAT ECAD Import Tool completes the engineering chain: Everything happens automatically without user intervention, from electrical design to PLC projects. The achievable reduction in input and transmission errors ultimately also reduces costs. From an ECAD program, the required information about the structure of the I/Os and the linkage to PLC variables is exported via XML. Beckhoff uses an XML schema for specifying the structure of the XML file. The TwinCAT ECAD Tool reads the XML file and generates a TwinCAT System Manager configuration with all I/O devices, Bus Terminals and Fieldbus Box modules, and a basic PLC program with the I/O variables used.

A software device hierarchy can be created by importing a further XML file. An NC device with tasks, axes and, obviously, I/O variables can be created automatically. For this too, links with PLC variables can be generated automatically. Corrections in the ECAD construction drawings can be implemented at any time. Any changes that may be required in the System Manager or the PLC program are carried out automatically, as far as possible.

In another direction, the TwinCAT ECAD Tool can produce the specified XML file from an existing TwinCAT System Manager configuration file. This provides an ECAD program an opportunity to get the information of I/Os configuration and then generate or modify the ECAD construction drawings.

The concept of TwinCAT ECAD Tool