EC-Engineer V2.9: New Features

EtherCAT P

EC-Engineer is supporting the configuration of EtherCAT P networks, now. EtherCAT P combines communication and power in a single 4-wire standard Ethernet cable. With EtherCAT P it is possible to supply the slaves and the connected sensors with two voltages. EC-Engineer detects the power supplying slaves and calculates if there is enough power for the connected slaves. It is also possible to enter the load of the connected sensors and actuators. There is also a view where the whole network can be checked.

EC-Engineer EtherCAT configuration tool

EC-Engineer EtherCAT configuration tool

EC-Engineer EtherCAT configuration tool

Performance check

The new EC-Engineer contains a view where the performance of the bus can be shown. It is showing the busload per cycle and per second.

EC-Engineer EtherCAT configuration tool

Snapshot and Offline Diagnosis

This feature takes a snapshot from the current diagnosis state and saves it into a capture file. There is also an automatic snapshot mode taking snapshots based on the configured rules, e. g. periodically and/or triggered by a notification. With this data it is possible to run an offline diagnosis mode to analyze previously captured data.

EC-Engineer EtherCAT configuration tool

EC-Engineer EtherCAT configuration tool

Mailbox Statistics Object

Within the embedded master of EC-Engineer, acontis has implemented a manufacturer specific object called the Mailbox Statistics Object in the Object Dictionary. The master is keeping track of all messages using the various mailbox protocols and summarizing them by mailbox protocol within this object. The user can observe various information such as Total Reads, Total Writes, Reads/Writes in the last second, all segmented by the respective mailbox protocols:

  • Ethernet over EtherCAT (EoE)
  • CAN application protocol over EtherCAT (CoE)
  • Beckhoff’s Automation Device Specification (ADS) over EtherCAT (AoE)
  • File Access over EtherCAT (FoE)
  • Servo Drive over EtherCAT (SoE)
  • Vendor-specific Profile over EtherCAT (VoE)

EC-Engineer EtherCAT configuration tool