PCI-4461 and EtherCAT

[busarider29]

Greetings,

I am using a Beckhoff IPC running Windows 10.  The IPC runs an industrial machine where I/O communications is over EtherCAT.  I would like to use a PCI-4461 in the machine, but I need to be able to fully integrate this new I/O into the EtherCAT bus along with the rest of the machine I/O.  Is this possible??  If so, how?  

Thanks,

D

[a_clucker]

Hey D,

Can you provide a bit more information about your system to help us understand what option(s) you might have:

1. Is the Beckhoff IPC acting as the EtherCAT master?

2. What other protocols does the Beckhoff IPC support? E.g. TCP, UDP

3. Is the PCI-4461 in the Beckhoff IPC, or is it in a separate computer? If it's in a separate computer, what OS is that computer running?

[busarider29]

Hi Andrew,

1.  The Beckhoff IPC would be the Master.

2.  I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure the Beckhoff platform has support for all common protocols and then some.

3.  The PCI-4461 would be inside the Beckhoff IPC.  Currently have not made any purchases as we are still looking for all options available.  

Thank you,

D

[a_clucker]

D,

If I understand correctly, the EtherCAT master software is done through Beckhoff (moreover, not LabVIEW), and the issue is you need to communicate between this Beckhoff EtherCAT master software and the 4461's software?

I think this all depends on what you can / can't do in the EtherCAT master software.

- Can you read TCP / UDP? If yes, you could create a LabVIEW app that reads from 4461 and publishes the tag data via TCP -or- UDP

- Can you call C or .NET code? If so, you could control the 4461 through the DAQmx C API.

Alternatively, you might be able to choose LabVIEW as the main programming environment. I'm not sure how the Beckhoff EtherCAT software works, but you can make DLL calls in LabVIEW. So, perhaps there is a way you could control the Beckhoff EtherCAT software from LabVIEW.

Thoughts?

[busarider29]

Andrew,

I'm exploring options for a machine requirement where I need three IEPE channels that can acquire @ >=200 ks/S.  The 4461 is one option of three that I have found.  I would need three of the 4461's since the sampling for the card is multiplexed.  My end-goal for these channels is two fold:  

1.  Trigger alarms from the data of the IEPE sensors of the 4461 (shut down test, machine, etc).

2.  Stream data from the IEPE sensors, along with other sensors on the machine, to the same data file so that data is synchronized in the file with timestamps of all data aligned.  The other sensors will be connected to the Beckhoff IPC/PLC.  

Obviously, I want to accomplish both in the simplest way possible.  Bringing the data of the IEPE sensors into TwinCAT via the EtherCAT bus would be the simplest and ideal.  However, I'm beginning to think that this is not possible.  I sent out an inquiry to Beckhoff support yesterday about this same question and still waiting to hear back from them.

I did find this on the Beckhoff website (Infosys) regarding TCP/UDP.  It's an add-on license for TwinCAT.  I don't fully understand it but maybe that is what you are referring to??

Another option that I found for this machine requirement is to use NI's PXI platform for everything, including as the "PLC" of the machine.  This is a long shot though due to the cost of the PXI platform, and because we have been attempting to standardize to one PLC platform (Beckhoff).  I'd be surprised if management would agree to go with PXI, but who knows.  Waiting to hear back from them too on the three options I sent them yesterday.

Yes, I can call .NET code as the UI will be a Windows App I'll do in .NET.

D.

[a_clucker]

Hey D,

For TCP/UDP, my thought was that you could write a small LabVIEW program that takes the 4461 data and sends it via TCP or UDP. Then, the program that controls your EtherCAT communications receives this data, and turns around to send it out on the EtherCAT bus. So, all the TCP / UDP communication is happening internally to the IPC, and is being used for inter-process communication (also acronym'd as 'IPC').

Yes, it sounds like the PXI platform could meet the needs you've described. If that doesn't come through with your management (have you been in contact with a NI Sales Engineer? they're helpful to scope out where NI can fit in your solution), then .NET would probably be the option to integrate everything.