Diagnosis¶
In addition to the user data transportation, EtherCAT® provides a wide range of diagnostic functions, which can be useful for system activating. The upcoming diagnostic events from the EtherCAT® slaves are centralized in the master and can be displayed by using several function blocks. Localization of failures is greatly simplified with this function.
EtherCAT® Function Block Library
The function block library EtherCAT_AC500_V13.lib (since firmware version 1.3.0) EtherCAT_Library: ETHERCAT Library ETHERCAT Library contains different function blocks to get information about the status of communication and error states of the EtherCAT® Communication Module and connected EtherCAT® slaves. These function blocks can be embedded additionally, especially for the initial operation.
EtherCAT® Status and Diagnosis via Function Blocks
The EtherCAT® status messages can be requested by the following function blocks:
| Function Block Name | Function |
|---|---|
| ECAT_STATEECAT_STATE: ECAT_STATE ECAT_STATE | Common information about the status of the EtherCAT® bus |
| ECAT_BUS_DIAG: ECAT_BUS_DIAG ECAT_BUS_DIAG | Information about the status of all bus participants |
| ECAT_GET_DCLK_DEVI: ECAT_GET_DCLK_DEVI ECAT_GET_DCLK_DEVI | Information about the distributed clock of every slave |
A detailed function block description is in the document The EtherCAT® Library.
EtherCAT® Slave Diagnosis via Function Blocks
Status and error messages, which describe the slave state, are requested via the ECAT_SLV_DIAG function block:
| Function Block Name | Function |
|---|---|
| ECAT_SLV_DIAG: ECAT_SLV_DIAG ECAT_SLV_DIAG | Representation of diagnosis messages of connected slaves |
Device Revision
Hardware and firmware revision can be queried using the ECAT_SOE_READ: ECAT_SOE_READ ECAT_SOE_READ function block with index (idx) 2006h and subindex (subidx) 1:
- HW-Revision (WORD) is stored in the first 2 bytes,
- SW-Revision (1 CHAR plus 3 x BYTE, e. g. V.1.2.3)
Online Diagnosis
The online diagnosis in Automation_Builder software is only available by using special function blocks Diagnosis.