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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> Paul Mulligan [mailto:mulligan252@yahoo.ie]
<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, 23 February 2016 11:17 p.m.<br>
<b>To:</b> Graeme Foot<br>
<b>Subject:</b> configuration<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue","serif";color:black">Hi Graeme,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue","serif";color:black">What in your opinion is the best way to configure an Ethercat system. Do you use the ET 9000 configuration tool?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue","serif";color:black">The requirement here is to be able to configure all the SDO and PDO entries for the modules with a GUI without having
to hard-code this data into the application. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue","serif";color:black">Thanks,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:14.2pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica Neue","serif";color:black">Paul<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Hi,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">What we do in our app is hardcode the functions around configuring and using each of the module types we support, and use an XML configuration file to define
what modules are used for the particular installation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Our EtherCAT PC is headless, connected to a separate Windows PC that provides the GUI and upper level (non-realtime) control logic. The EtherCAT PC has a web
server interface that allows control and monitoring of the application via the Windows PC. We have also been working on extending the web interface to allow GUI editing of the apps config file. This is 90% complete, but keeps being put on the back burner
as other projects keep coming up and it really is quite easy to edit XML files direct.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">In future versions, if I ever get time, I would like to be able to replace the hardcoded functions by instead reading module description (ESI) files, but hardcoded
functions gives you so much more flexibility and we don’t often need to support new module types.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">I’ve never used the ET9000 configuration tool so can’t comment as to whether that is a good option. What I can say is that the EtherCAT configuration section
is a small part of our configuration file so for us using the ET9000 tool would likely be pointless.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Graeme.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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