EtherCAT Device Basics

The Networking Module is a modular EtherCAT device.

The devices which feature IO-Link (see Supported product variants) follow the EtherCAT specification EtherCAT Modular Device Profile Part 6220: IO-Link Master (ETG.5001.6220 S (D) V1.0.5).

The variants which do not feature IO-Link do follow this specification as close as possible, trying to inherit the majority of features to make the variants function similarly.

Device Model

All the data in the device is arranged in the Object Dictionary (see Object Dictionary), which is a collection of Objects. Each Object has a unique 16-bit Index and may contain one or more Sub-Objects, which are identified by an additional 8-bit Sub-Index.

Some of these objects can be mapped in cyclic data exchange.

Every variant of the Networking Module has the same structure of the Object Dictionary and data which is exchanged through the cyclic data exchange.

Data which is received from the EtherCAT device (to the PLC) is typically called Input Data or TxPDO, while data which is sent to the device (from the PLC) is called Output Data or RxPDO.

Some cyclic data is fixed and will always be present in the data exchange, while other data is variable and can be configured to be present or not.

Data configuration
Configurable/ Fixed	Name	Direction	Note and Description
Fixed	Device Status	TxPDO	Not available for variants without IO-Link
Fixed	Port Qualifier	TxPDO	Not available for variants without IO-Link
Fixed	Input Pin 2	TxPDO
Fixed	Power Status	TxPDO
Fixed	New Message Available	TxPDO
Fixed	Timestamp	TxPDO
Fixed	Output Pin 2	RxPDO	Not available for variants without Output on Pin 2
Configurable as Slots 1…8	Channel/ Slot 1…8	TxPDO/ RxPDO	Representation of Port 1…8. Can be configured to the desired functionality.

The Slots 1…8 are the modular slots of the device. Each slot can be configured to a specific functionality which also assigns the functionality to the corresponding port and will influence the data which is exchanged through the cyclic data exchange. For possible configurations see EtherCAT configuration.

Failsafe values

If the EtherCAT connection fails or if the EtherCAT status is not Operate, the IO-Link Ports use these values:

If a port is in the IO-Link state Operate, the process data displayed is switched to invalid.
If Pin 2 or Pin 4 are in the digital output mode, zero (low level) is displayed.