For ordinary Ethernet there cheap development boards available with an Ethernet connector. I use the 7i80 but will change to standard protocol as soon as there is time.
Ethercat require two Ethernet connectors and as signals are changed while passing thru also special hardware. As is now I have not seen any cheap development boards with Ethercat. To multicast control signals to several Ethernet devices at once should be no problem but to send for example measurement values from several Ethernet devices at once is not possible with Ethernet but with Ethercat. I consider Ethercat superior since it would be no performance penalty to divide work on several devices but difference is probably not to large for most cases. Nicklas Karlsson ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
