[etherlab-users] Etherlab and hub/switch

[Florian Pose]

Hi Aaron,

On Thu, Jul 03, 2008 at 05:14:42PM -0700, Aaron Edsinger wrote:
> Hello. I've got multiple EtherCAT networks I'd like to bring into a 
> single NIC/Etherlab master. Has anyone tried this using a standard 
> Ethernet switch/hub, or can you advise the best way to do this?

using a switch is possible when you want to just listen to the EtherCAT
traffic, because the switch forwards the frames to all ports.

To combine multiple bus segments, you'll have to use EtherCAT slaves
that have free ports like for example Beckhoff's EK1100, EK1110 or
EK1122. Consider to use alias addresses in that case.

Theoretically it's possible to use EtherCAT in a routed network by
encapsulation EtherCAT frames in UDP. But that's currently not
implemented in the Master.

-- 
Best regards,
Florian Pose

http://etherlab.org