SIRIUS
®
TECHNICAL REFERENCE MANUAL
5.1.2.2. DS-ETHERCAT+
In comparison to standard EtherCAT® the DS-EtherCAT+ protocol has the following benefits:
● Buffering: DEWESoft® EtherCAT® devices buffer the measurement data for some seconds, so
that all data can still be accessed, even if the Master (i.e. DEWESoft® on Windows®) is a little late.
● Synchronisation: DEWESoft® EtherCAT® devices can acquire the samples at an exact time
stamp. The timestamp can be provided by an external timing source (e.g. GPS or IRIG)
● Retrans
● mit: since EtherCAT® packets are below the TCP/IP level, the standard protocol does not handle
lost packets. The enhanced DS-EtherCAT+ protocol will detect lost packets and retransmit them.
Notes:
● Since the SIRIUS® devices are EtherCAT® slaves, an external EtherCAT® master is required
● EtherCAT® needs a dedicated network interface: i.e. you cannot mix EtherCAT® to your existing
Intranet (LAN network) or Internet1 (i.e. connect them to the same Ethernet-switch)
● In comparison to the SIRIUS-USB slices, the SIRIUS EtherCAT® modules do not have CAN and no
analog output
Hint
The maximum number of samples per device using EtherCAT® bus is 160 kS/sec for all
transmitted channels: i.e. for 8 channels the rate would be 20 kHz.
The maximum speed per bus is limited to the 100 Mbit EtherCAT® bus speed. When DEWESoft®
is the master, it can utilize approximately half of this bandwidth, but other masters might be
more efficient.
SIRIUS
®
V20-1 126 / 336