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Setting up 3rd-Party EtherCAT Slaves in VeriStand

Updated Apr 27, 2023

Environment

Other

  • Third party EtherCAT Slave

This article walks the reader through the steps to configure NI Real-Time Controllers (e.g.: cRIO or PXI) as EtherCAT Master for third party (non NI) EtherCAT Slaves.

Prerequirements
 

Steps
 

  1. Specify the EtherCAT Master as deployment target for your VeriStand Project

  2. Add the Scan Engine and EtherCAT Custom Device to the VeriStand System Definition File

  3. Right click the Scan Engine and EtherCAT Custom Device and select “Add EtherCAT Master” to add the EtherCAT Master item to the VeriStand System Definition File


 

  1. Right Click the EtherCAT Master item and select “Manage 3rd-party EtherCAT Slaves”

    From the “Manage 3rd Party ECAT Slaves” Window, browse to the ESI file location. Make sure that the Import checkboxes are flagged for both host and target and select “Import”, when prompted to reboot the EtherCAT Master select “OK”. In case of errors when importing the device profile, follow the steps documented in this article and try again the Import procedure. After rebooting your EtherCAT Master, you should found your device profile on both the host machine and the EhterCAT Master (the below example is referred to the REM-11180 Bus Coupler).

image.png


 

  1. Close the “Manage 3rd Party ECAT Slaves” Window

  2. Right click the Scan Engine and EtherCAT Custom Device and select “Auto-detect Modules”: if the EtherCAT Slave is connected to the EtherCAT Master, the EtherCAT Slave item will be added to the VeriStand System Definition File. If prompted with the -356004 Error make sure that  I/O Variable Remote Configuration Web Service component was installed on your EtherCAT Master 
     

    image.png
     

  3. Deploy your System Definition File to the EtherCAT Master

 
 
 

You should now be able to use your EtherCAT slave with NI VeriStand.

Next Steps