It is possible to have the master PC connect via standard switch to a standard
Ethernet network, one connection of which is the entire EtherCAT slave network.
(It is not possible to have standard Ethernet devices interleaved with
EtherCAT devices, at least not without dedicated bridge slaves de
Hi Paul,
The basic story is the EtherCAT slave hardware modifies the Ethernet frame
as it passes through each node, and then returns the modified frame back to
the host -- essentially a token passing version of Ethernet. As such, the
use of standard hubs or switches will result in a packet storm.
