PROFINET device for EtherCAT I/O system
Press Release Thursday, July 21, 2011
Beckhoff is expanding its product range for the high-performance EtherCAT I/O system with the EL6631-0010 PROFINET terminal which, as a gateway from EtherCAT to PROFINET RT, connects two real-time Ethernet bus systems with one another.
The EtherCAT Terminal system enables the integration of fieldbus and Industrial Ethernet systems via local master/slave terminals. As a PROFINET device, the EL6631-0010 slave terminal enables the simple exchange of data between EtherCAT and PROFINET RT networks. The terminal features two RJ 45 ports for the simple construction of a line topology.
The implementation of the internal network services LLDP (for topology recognition) and SNMP (for monitoring) provides the data for network diagnostics. LLDP supports the automatic recognition of the physical cabling of the network. The EL6631-0010 can exchange up to 1,000 bytes of user data between EtherCAT and PROFINET in a cycle time of 1 ms. Additionally implemented characteristics are the I&M functions 1 – 4 (Identification and Maintenance Profiles) and Shared Device as per GSDML 2.25. With “Shared Device”, the EL6631-0010 can emulate a further PROFINET device. This means that one EL6631-0010 PROFINET terminal can be connected to two PROFINET controllers, even though only one device is physically present.
As an alternative to the PROFINET device terminal, any PC-based Beckhoff controller (Industrial PC or Embedded PC) can be converted into a PROFINET device using ‘TwinCAT PROFINET IO Device’ software.
