EtherCAT Analysis Without Any Impact on the Network
With EC-Inspector, there is no need to intervene in the network, control, the EtherCAT master software, or the configuration. EC-Inspector is therefore suitable for new installations (greenfield) as well as for existing systems and machines (brownfield). The raw data (EtherCAT frames) is decoded and associated with the corresponding symbolic variables (inputs and outputs) based on the descriptions from the EtherCAT Network Information file (ENI).
In addition to monitoring process data, EC-Inspector can also be used to analyze communication faults on the EtherCAT network. As long as the EtherCAT master software is regularly checking the slave error counter register, this data can also be analyzed by EC-Inspector and the faults can be clearly visualized in the topology view.
System Architecture
Analyzing and Decoding of EtherCAT Protocol Based on Network Information file (ENI)
Monitoring of Process Data Variables
Monitoring of Slave State
Analysis of Communication Problems Frame Errors, Link Loss, etc.
Processing of Previously Captured Frames (Wireshark file)
Architecture
Stepwise Processing of EtherCAT Frames Based on Network Cycles
Snapshot and Offline Diagnosis
- Collect data from the current diagnosis state and save it into a capture file
- Offline investigation mode for analyzing captured data
- Capture file can be emailed for further analysis by someone else
- Use captured data as documentation, like for a status report