Twincat beginner

[damien 0]

Hello everyone, I am total new on the ethercat bus. I will soon have to test a board using Ethercat. Then my company though about using twincat for it. Since I do not know anything about it I looked over the internet and grasp some information. I would like to know if I understand well twincat functionment: In system manager: First I need to create a new Ethercat device in I/O device and apply a box to it (the XML of my board). Than twincat knows all I/O which are on my board and will update them automatically with the cycle time I configure on twincat. If I want to use mailbox i need to define them in the XML file and then twincat will automatically update the mailbox, on state change or with a cycle time I define. I can instantly change the value of variable byclicking on the writte button of the I/O I want to change. In the PLC controller: If I want to automatically change the value of the variable I need to write a PLC program in the PLC controller and link the variable to the I/O of my board in the system manager. I am asking all of that because I can not do the tests yet but I need to confirm that I can do all the thgins we need thanks to twincat. Then are those things true or I misunderstood twincat functionment? Thank you by advance for your help

[JouniK 2]

That's pretty much how it works. If it's a beckhoff module, you can just select it from the list, no need for any files, but other manufacturers stuff need the file, naturally. One thing is that, it's better to scan the PLC hardware and then add the modules(unless you happen to have all the modules with power, you can scan them all, which is the best option), because it's hard to know the exact configuration of the PLC. Unfortunately beckhoff doesn't give the basic configurations for the PLCs (i've asked, when i needed to start a project, but didn't have the PLC hardware at hand, atleast they didn't because they didn't have that PLC available to them at that moment), so you might have to just add something and add the correct PLC configuration later.

[Joan M 3]

You could always use the PLCControl to test your program and wait for the PLC to scan the complete PLC io's in the System Manager. You can use even your computer to test the program. In order to do that you have only to set TWinCAT in run mode in your computer (ALT+ and system run), then in the PLC control look for the right PLC to receive your program (in that case LOCAL is the right choice). And load the PLC program into your computer. There are only a few differences between all the CPU models, some accept pointers, some others not, there are old processors which store data in different ways than newer ones… But all in all most of the differences are not important when you are starting, and one of the best things comparing Beckhoff to others is the fact you can use as many elements you want of each kind (i.e. you are not limited to a certain number of counters, timers…). And the speed is incredible. Good luck!