Industrial Communications

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Possible to run non-NI EtherCAT master stack on NI linux real-time?

Hi guys, I am seeing that the NI industrial communications for ethercat does not support many of the features I would need to have for a project, namely hot-connect and alternate topologies than line or ring. Would it maybe be possible to install something like the Acontis EtherCAT master stack for real-time and have it run the ethercat bus, or is there somekind of lock-down on cRIO or NI industrial computers that will block me from doing that?

http://www.acontis.com/eng/products/ethercat/ec-master/

 

0 Kudos
Message 1 of 4
(3,432 Views)

Hey Mark,

 

In addition to line and ring, we've had customers successfully use star topology. There is also a way to auto-detect slaves.

 

As for putting Acontis on cRIO or an IC, they both run the Linux kernel. It looks like the Acontis page claims support for Linux, so maybe you can get them to play nicely together. I'm not aware of a lock-down mechanism.

Andrew T.
"His job is to shed light, and not to master" - Robert Hunter
Message 2 of 4
(3,393 Views)

Thank you Andrew good to know. Yes it will probably take some linux skills to make everything work. The auto-detect slaves is interesting-- I'll have to take a look. I'm not sure I want to mess with trying to implement my own hot-connect though. I also need to stop the scan engine from going to safe mode if a group of slaves is detached too. So it might just easier to ditch the NI driver for a different one.  

0 Kudos
Message 3 of 4
(3,384 Views)

Hello Mark,

 

we have the same problem as you. Did you find a solution to implement the Acontis EtherCat Master in the NI environment? Thank you very much in advance!

0 Kudos
Message 4 of 4
(1,951 Views)