Used Versions

Hardware

In this example, we used the following topology:

cifx (EtherCAT Master) ↔︎ Baumer Encoder ↔︎ EK1101 with EL1014, EL2004 and KL9010 attached.

Configuration

Use the Communication Studio and create a network configuration.

This can be done with an automatic network scan or by manually adding the EtherCAT slaves.

ESI files for all used slaves need to be imported beforehand.

Open

Import EDS file

In this example, the network looks like this:

Open

Configured EtherCAT network

After downloading, we should do a quick check of the Diagnostic screen and check the network was configured properly.

Topology configuration for Hot Connect function

To configure Hot Connect, we need to correctly configure the topology

In this example, we choose the EK1101, and it’s connected EL1014 & EL2004 IO Modules to be a Hot Connect Slave. To do so, we do a right click on the respective slave and choose “Add Hot Connect”.

In the next window, it is crucial to correctly configure the identification method. This can either be a station alias, an explicit device identification or a data word. This depends on the capability of the used slave.

Ideally, this is known information, or it should be extractable from the user manual of the used slave.

If it is not clear whether an explicit device identification or a data word is used, one can check the ESI file and search for IdentificationAdo.

In this example, the Identification switches (ID switch) was set to “8”.

After setting the Identification, highlight all the attached IO Modules.

This will lead to Hot Connect Topology looking like this.

Checking function of Hot Connect

We can download this new configuration into the master and check the proper function.