EtherCAT Library

Name	Object Type	Description
DriveParamRead	SDO	Reads a drive parameter (ASCII format)
DriveParamWrite	SDO	Writes a drive parameter (ASCII format)
ECATCommErrors		Returns a list of bad EtherCATEtherCAT is an open, high-performance Ethernet-based fieldbus system. The development goal of EtherCAT was to apply Ethernet to automation applications which require short data update times (also called cycle times) with low communication jitter (for synchronization purposes) and low hardware costs connections
ECATDeviceStatus		Provides EtherCAT state and port link status information for an EtherCAT device.
ECATGetObjVal	PDO	Reads cyclic drive parameter (String format) by returning the value of an EtherCAT PDO element
ECATMasterStatus		Reads the EtherCAT master state and the lost frame counter
ECATReadData	PDO	Reads cyclic parameter (byte offset format)
ECATReadSdo	SDO	Reads parameter (32 bit format) using SDO command
ECATWCStatus		Returns the current number of working counter errors for the Sync unit
ECATWriteData	PDO	Writes cyclic parameter (byte offset format)
ECATWriteSdo	SDO	Writes parameter (32 bit format) using SDO command

Table 7-44: List of EtherCAT FB

The four EtherCAT SDO function blocks are activated by the CANopen over EtherCAT (CoE) protocol in a client/server mode.

• The client (aka EtherCAT master) is the KAS RuntimeIn computer science, runtime (or run-time) describes the operation of a computer program, the duration of its execution, from beginning to termination (compare compile time). Within KAS, runtime also refers to the virtual machine that manage the program written in a computer language while it is running application
• The servers (aka EtherCAT slaves) are the drives and I/O nodes where data can be retrieved

The SDO function blocks only support the reading and writing of 32-bit values. It is the fundamental size of CANopen SDO calls.

Why use ECATReadSdo and ECATWriteSdo FBs?

The ECATReadSdo and ECATWriteSdo response time is faster and therefore is typically preferred over the DriveParamRead and DriveParamWrite.

Why use the DriveParam FBs?

The two reasons to prefer the DriveParam FBs are:

• They allow direct use of the parameter name
  (e.g. IL.LIMITP instead of the SDO index: 356Eh)
• They can be used to setup a drive terminal in the HMI"Human-machine interfaces " Also known as computer-human interfaces (CHI), and formerly known as man-machine interfaces, they are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers, such as entering and monitoring temperatures or pressures for further automated control or emergency response application
  (which is similar to the Terminal view available in the AKD widget embedded in the KAS IDE"Integrated development environment" An integrated development environment is a type of computer software that assists computer programmers in developing software. IDEs normally consist of a source code editor, a compiler and/or interpreter, build-automation tools, and a debugger)

See Also