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4.4 EtherCAT Communication
■ EtherCAT Specifications
Item Description
Communication protocol EtherCAT
Available services CoE (PDO, SDO)
Synchronization mode Distributed clock for the drive and synchronous
input/output for I/O
Physical layer 100BASE‑TX
Baud rate 100 Mbit/s (100Base‑TX)
Duplex mode Full duplex
Topology Linear topology
Transmission medium Network cable
Transmission distance Less than 100 m between two nodes
Number of slaves Up to 72 (8‑axis supported by Easy501; 16‑axis
supported by Easy502)
EtherCAT Frame length 44 to 1498 bytes
Process data 1486 bytes at most for an individual Ethernet frame
■ Wiring
The PLC enables EtherCAT bus communication through CN3, which requires the
following communication cable:
Communication cable requirements
Signal pin assignment