[etherlab-users] Slave lost forever after power cycling

Mon Feb 17 18:00:39 CET 2020

Thank you very much for your reply.

It seems like the position on the slave network doesn't matter. What matters i the alias addressing of this particular slave. When I don't give the TU4 slave any alias address I can power-cycle it without loosing it. But as soon as I've given it an alias address and power-cycle it is lost (not every time but almost).

What might cause this? It seems like the EEPROM/Sii of the slave overwritten at start-up when it has been given an alias address. Is there a way to prevent this? How does this work "under the hood"?
I use "sudo ethercat -p1 alias 2" for example to give the slave on position 1 the alias address 2. Nothing wrong here I presume since it seems to work for other slaves.

I've been in contact with the vendor of the TU4 module and they claim that this module is working in big volumes (thousands) on the market. All their other customers use TwinCAT and they haven't heard of this problem. I have also tried three different TU4 modules to exclude the possibility of one failing individual.

Examples:

1.All slaves have alias addresses => TU4-ECT lost after power-cycling.

$ sudo ethercat slaves

0  1:0  PREOP  +  AXL F BK EC, Axioline EtherCAT Fieldbus coupler

1  2:0  PREOP  +  TU4-ECT

2  3:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1930

3  4:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1332

Power-cycling...

$ sudo ethercat slaves

0  1:0  PREOP  +  AXL F BK EC, Axioline EtherCAT Fieldbus coupler

1  2:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1930

2  3:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1930

3  4:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1332

2. No slave has an alias address => No problem after power-cycling.

$ sudo ethercat slaves

0  0:0  PREOP  +  AXL F BK EC, Axioline EtherCAT Fieldbus coupler

1  0:1  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1930

2  0:2  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1332

3  0:3  PREOP  +  TU4-ECT

Power-cycling...

$ sudo ethercat slaves

0  0:0  PREOP  +  AXL F BK EC, Axioline EtherCAT Fieldbus coupler

1  0:1  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1930

2  0:2  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1332

3  0:3  PREOP  +  TU4-ECT

3. All slaves but the TU4 has alias addresses => No problem

$ sudo ethercat slaves

0  1:0  PREOP  +  AXL F BK EC, Axioline EtherCAT Fieldbus coupler

1  2:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1930

2  3:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1332

3  3:1  PREOP  +  TU4-ECT

Power-cycling...

$ sudo ethercat slaves

0  1:0  PREOP  +  AXL F BK EC, Axioline EtherCAT Fieldbus coupler

1  2:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1930

2  3:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1332

3  3:1  PREOP  +  TU4-ECT

Best regards,

Joachim Sällvin

________________________________
Från: Gavin Lambert <gavin.lambert at tomra.com>
Skickat: den 16 februari 2020 23:58
Till: Joachim Sällvin <joachim.sallvin at corpowerocean.com>; etherlab-users at etherlab.org <etherlab-users at etherlab.org>
Ämne: RE: Slave lost forever after power cycling

Have you tried putting it in different positions on the slave network?  Perhaps it only vanishes when downstream of a particular slave; then the problem might be with that slave’s configuration.

Etherlab typically assumes that all slaves are configured with DL auto-open mode (so that slaves that are connected or rebooted are automatically brought into the virtual ring network), but it’s possible that one of your upstream slaves has been configured in the explicit open mode instead.

Gavin Lambert
Senior Software Developer

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From: Joachim Sällvin
Sent: Friday, 14 February 2020 22:34
To: etherlab-users at etherlab.org
Subject: [etherlab-users] Slave lost forever after power cycling

Hi all,

I loose contact with my TU4-ECT (freq inverter from Nord Drive) slave after power-cycling it when there are other slaves on the bus. This happens intermittently. Only a EEPROM reset (I use TwinCAT for this ) can make it accessible again. When it is the only slave on the bus it seems as I can power-cycle and always access again.

Has anyone experienced the same problem? What might cause this? Workarounds?

Example:

Before power-cycling the TU4-ECT (all slaves have been given alias addresses):

$ sudo ethercat slaves

0  1:0  PREOP  +  EK1100 EtherCAT-Koppler (2A E-Bus)

1  2:0  PREOP  +  EL2004 4K. Dig. Ausgang 24V, 0.5A

2  3:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1332

3  4:0  INIT   E  TU4-ECT

After power-cycling the TU4-ECT:

$ sudo ethercat slaves

0  1:0  PREOP  +  EK1100 EtherCAT-Koppler (2A E-Bus)

1  2:0  PREOP  +  EL2004 4K. Dig. Ausgang 24V, 0.5A

2  3:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1332

3  8:0  PREOP  +  ifm IO-Link Master AL1332

Lost!!!

I'm using Linux kernel 4.13.13-rt5, Ubuntu 18.04 and EtherCAT master 1.5.2.

Joachim Sällvin

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