The EasyCAT Gateway is a device that allows to exchange data between an EtherCAT® bus and an USB host or an Ethernet network. It is seen by the EtherCAT® master as a slave, with two exchange data areas, one for the inputs and one for the outputs. The embedded microcontroller, an Arm M0 SAMD21G18, will transfer these data to and from a different interface, I.E. the USB or the Ethernet, thus implementing the gateway functionality. The microcontroller firmware can be developed using the Arduino IDE and therefore you can easily customize the behaviour of the Gateway, taking advantage of the semplicity of the Arduino enviroment and of the huge amount of software libraries available.
The default size of the data exchange area is 32 bytes in input and 32 bytes in outputs.
Important note: the EasyCAT Gateway is an EtherCAT® Slave and cannot be used to implement an EtherCAT® Master.
Some of the possible applications are:
- Educational
- Detection and data storage
- Serial gateways RS-232, RS-485, CAN, Modbus TCP/IP, ecc …from and toward EtherCAT®
- Emulators of other EtherCAT® devices
- Operator Panels
Specifications
- EtherCAT® interface LAN9252 with 4K bytes configuration EEPROM
- Ethernet interface W5500 with unique MAC address preprogrammed in external EEPROM (128 bytes available for general purpose)
- USB interface Native Samd21 USB 2.0 USB programming Through FTDI FX230 USB-serial converter
- Microcontroller SAMD21G18, 32-Bit ARM Cortex M0+ Clock speed 48 MHz Flash 256 KB Sram 32KB Fully compatible with the Arduino IDE
- Power Supply 5V max. 350mA.
Warnings
The EasyCAT Gateway is NOT designed for industrial environments and industrial applications, so it is strongly recommended to NOT use in these environments or applications, the AB&T S.r.l. declines all responsibility for improper use of this device.
The USB cable is NOT included in the package.
Easy Navigator
To meet the request of many Customers who ask for a simple software tool to test the applications made with our EasyCAT boards, we have developed the Easy Navigator. It is a very basic EtherCAT® Master with a friendly and intuitive HMI where You can easily read and write values from/to the EasyCAT boards. It's not required any special library as WinPCAP because it uses the feature of the EtherCAT® protocol to be encapsulated in an UDP frame. Then simply connect Your EasyCAT board to the LAN port of Your PC, run the tool and enjoy the EtherCAT®.
Download
User Manual (.pdf)
EasyCAT Gateway Firmware (Arduino Sketch) (.zip)
Host Examples (.zip)
USB Driver FTDI (.zip)
USB Driver Arduino (.zip)
XML EtherCAT® Configuration File (ESI)
Easy Navigator V1.0 (.zip)
Open Source Master with which to test our cards
There are numerous EtherCAT® Masters on the market, some of which are Open Source and are a valid help to start testing with our cards. The ones we recommend are three:EtherCAT Explorer that works on Windows
IgH EtherCAT Master that works on Linux
SOEM that works on Windows and Linux.
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