Electronics > Mechanical & Automation Engineering

EtherCAT motion controller

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V_King:
Hello,
I need to commit to an EtherCAT motion controller vendor, but keep going in circles with my decision. There are a number of options in the industry: Beckhoff (expensive), Trio Motion (Behind times) and a ton of others. BUT I need to be able to integrate motion controller with our .NET GUI. And that's where the problems begin. All the vendors I dealt with, dipped their toes into creating some sort of library 10 years ago and left at it. So a lot of the stuff is pretty much obsolete. I am now leaning towards having a soft EtherCAT master with some sort of RTOS for win10 or linux running a small server for our app to communicate.
Any vendor recommendations? Ideally UK/EU with decent support.
Thanks

Vtile:
EtherCAT protocol is brainchild of Beckhoff automation.
Usually the original vendor is the best choice.

Unfortunately my experience with etherCAT is from 10years ago with mentioned .NET library and my work with it was nothing that can be considered serious application. For simple thing I did use it, was however working as expected.

Could you get a test rig for a few weeks from local representative for evaluation.

Edit. Just for clarification, by EtherCAT do you specifically refer to EtherCAT or any ethernet based fieldbus protocols (ie. ProfiNET, Ethernet/IP)?

Edit. Also you need to look at what kind of capabilities specific vendor can support by hardware, ie. If you need one axis or 30axes of motion, how fast and which power range 1watt or 1megaWatt, which kind of encoders they support ... whole chain from process to GUi panel. ...and this age and time possible safety features if process is evaluated to be such that it needs such for motion part.

V_King:
Thanks, if Beckhoff did not quote me £2k for a motion controller + training on top, I would probably would have gone for them already. Our application is quite basic with basic motion, but needs to be able to fully interface with .NET app. And bill of materials is important.

I was hoping somebody have more on hand experience they could share. I am at the moment going through test kits and training tutorials just to build a picture of real application capabilities (not sales blurb) and it is very time consuming.

And, yes, I do need etherCAT. And etherCAT is not a problem nowadays, it is mainstream and almost all vendors offer it.

Also, the question is for motion controller side, not servo drives. I have got servo drives already selected, but the servo drives manufacturer does not offer motion controllers.

mon2:
Try ASIX (Taiwan). We have met this company in Taipei and have used their (other) devices for many years with success. Support has been excellent.

https://www.asix.com.tw/en/product/IndustrialEthernet

Scroll down this page to find assorted motor controller based ref designs over Ethercat:

https://www.asix.com.tw/en/application/IndustrialIoT

BeBuLamar:
Like other said Beckoff is the best choice so whoever made you commit to ethercat should pay for it.

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