> On 9 Jun 2020, at 23:51, Stephen Bell <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
> The BBB would be the master for my use case, with devices such as servomotor 
> drivers as slaves in a dual-redundant topology. I use the BBB Wireless, and 
> thus don't have the onboard RJ-45. 

If you want the bus to be redundant, the master indeed needs 2 connectors. In a 
normal non redundant setup all the wires make up a single ring. The master 
receives back its original datagram plus what all the slaves added to the 
”train”. If there is a cable break, the master will never receive back the 
updated datagram.

I would love the BB to be enabled with the ti pru-icss ethercat stack so it 
would act as a slave. Then maybe a HAL component similarly to the 
Hal-pru-generic component could exchange HAL pins with the ethercat bus.

I tried working on that a few years ago, bought an AM437xIDK 
https://www.ti.com/tool/TMDSIDK437X  but I didn’t get to the finish. I got 
stuck very quickly when trying to work out how to get the ethercat slave stack 
working in a Debian image.

Robert Nelson helped a lot to get me to build an image, and that worked fine on 
that board/cpu. IIRC I got machinekit to work.
But the PRU icss and ethercat was a bridge too far for me. iirc the ethercat 
slave stack code was made for an rtos so i had no clue where to begin. My lack 
of (domain) knowledge.

Bas

> The other industrial connections would also be necessary, particularly in a 
> push-connector form factor, rather than screw terminals (additional points if 
> they can be accessed when on a DIN rail).  
> 
> Isn't the BBB a 'popular MCU'? The thread is intended to take suggestions for 
> a new machinekit cape design, not alternative MCUs. But if an EtherCAT cape 
> is as trivial as you describe, send me a production sample and I'll pay a lot 
> more than 2 cents. 
> 
>> On Tuesday, June 9, 2020 at 4:25:43 PM UTC-4, Juha Heikkila wrote:
>> Hmm out of curiosity why would you require 2 separate EtherCat ports or is 
>> it just for a ring topology?
>> 
>> If you can settle for just one, you could run the igh EtherCat master stack 
>> on the BBB and use available LAN port. So if one is enough, no need to mixup 
>> the cape with the EtherCat stuff.
>> 
>> ”Ideally” for an industrial approach you could do ”minimal” setup on the 
>> cape and then (I think someone suggested this in the past) make a bunch of 
>> EtherCat slaves. Using a microchip LAN9252 coupled with a microcontoller is 
>> relatively simple to make and somewhat cheap. From the top of my head ill 
>> say the 9252 requires some 50 components around it and most just resistors 
>> and capacitors. The EtherCat slave license ”comes with” the LAN9252 so no 
>> issues 
>> 
>> If you pair the slave controller with a popular mcu I think the community 
>> could do a lot in the EtherCat slave world.
>> 
>> Just my 2 cents.
>> 
>> tiistai 9. kesäkuuta 2020 Stephen Bell <[email protected]> kirjoitti:
>>> Agreed on the massive requirements disparity. In my view, given how 
>>> saturated the market is for stepper-motor based control boards 
>>> (particularly the Duet 3, which can be controlled by a BBB/RPi) I'd prefer 
>>> a more Break-out-Board style cape to make industrial-level control more 
>>> accessible. 
>>> 
>>> My ideal cape would have dual etherCAT RJ45 ports, an RS422 or 485 header 
>>> with voltage selection for PLC/spindle vfd control, UART headers, dual CAN 
>>> headers and a small array of optoisloators for the other GPIO. Biggest 
>>> problem for this is the ethercat license, which is somewhat of a pain...
>>> 
>>> I also prefer the web-based GUIs locally hosted on the device, which can be 
>>> accessed across the network and use less resources than a driven display 
>>> and a native GUI, so I'd prefer a cape NOT be limited by a desire to have a 
>>> screen/monitor from the BBB. 
>>> 
>>> just my 2C
>>> 
>>>> On Sunday, June 7, 2020 at 12:46:01 AM UTC-4, Malte Schmidt wrote:
>>>> I think the issue is always that the requirements with these machines are 
>>>> very different and that you never quite get what is needed.
>>>> When I build the cape I use on my lathe I sort of used a modular design. I 
>>>> based this on a prototype cape and used those small optocoupler and level 
>>>> shift modules that you get from China for the maker scene. It looks quite 
>>>> like a hack but you might see the three opto modules in the back and the 
>>>> two level shifters here:
>>>> https://forum.zerspanungsbude.net/download/file.php?id=188366&mode=view
>>>> There is an external pwm-> 0-10V module as well (not shown) for spindle 
>>>> control
>>>> 
>>>> I always thought about making this nicer. I would have done it this way:
>>>> A cape that:
>>>> - Make PRU and GPIO Pins available in sets of 4? pins on standardized PIN 
>>>> headers + power.
>>>> - Makes the terminals for connecting the cables available
>>>> 
>>>> PLUS
>>>> 
>>>> Small modules for level shift, opto isolation , spindle control (as 
>>>> desired). These would use the standardized connectors on the cape.
>>>> For this I would actually rely on stuff that is already available (if so).
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> website: http://www.machinekit.io blog: http://blog.machinekit.io github: 
>>> https://github.com/machinekit
>>> --- 
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
>>> "Machinekit" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
>>> email to [email protected].
>>> To view this discussion on the web visit 
>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/machinekit/4e75a7ba-b13f-4579-a7f1-09211ff4cbd7o%40googlegroups.com.
> 
> -- 
> website: http://www.machinekit.io blog: http://blog.machinekit.io github: 
> https://github.com/machinekit
> --- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Machinekit" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to [email protected].
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/machinekit/61c7c2b7-e1bb-4c2c-8556-355bf16645b2o%40googlegroups.com.

-- 
website: http://www.machinekit.io blog: http://blog.machinekit.io github: 
https://github.com/machinekit
--- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Machinekit" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to [email protected].
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/machinekit/E3597AE0-5791-438A-981D-D941017C7FB3%40basdebruijn.com.

Reply via email to