9 months ago·Posted in Communication

Ethercat topology no Ok - stop whole network

Hi all!

Whenever a slave is not in OP mode, my whole network starts misbehaving.

For example, if there is a ctrlx Drive without it´s motor in the network (stuck in CM mode and network with topology not ok error), my ctrlx IO digital input modules starts blinking. Also if i remove the ethercat cable from a remote IO module, the remaining local modules that should keep working starts reading zero.

io.zip

7.47MB

I am using version 2.6 LTS. Hopefully there is a configuration i am missing that makes only the affected slaves inacessible, not the whole ethercat network like i am getting here.

Best reply by cc2go

Hello nishimura ,

with EtherCAT, all devices which share the same SyncUnit will be disturbed, when there is an EtherCAT interruption or any EC device is in Init or Pre-Op.

You can solve it, when you assign each EC device to an individual SyncUnit. But this will add overhead, additional Control and Status Data for each SyncUnit, to the EtherCAT process data.

Good practice, to build functional groups, for example one SyncUnit for the Drives and another for the I/O or all EC devices of a machine module together in one SyncUnit. In result, the not affected SyncUnit, those EC devices will continue working. All EC devices in an affected SyncUnit will go to the Safe state.

2 replies