I have a customer who makes a motion controller with step and direction drive output. I am looking to see if they could change to ctrlX CORE and be able to use EtherCat instead. Typically their machines have 4 to 5 axes.
Their current system has a microcontroller which receives motion commands via an ethernet port. I don't know the protocol but it is probably their own. The microcontroller is programmed in C. The microcontroller runs with a very fast interrupt to generate individual steps. There is no operating system.
I am thinking that they could port their C code using the C/C++ SDK and build it into a snap. The snap would need to run in real time synchronised to the EtherCat communications cycle. I have some questions about this...
Is it possible to do online debugging of the C/C++ snap?
Will there be a motion command to synchronously feed position commands to the axes? eg. WriteCyclicPosition. Or can this only be done through DataLayer real time access?
What is the minimum CtrlX configuration needed for this......
EtherCat Master - Yes
Motion - ? Or can the snap send position commands direct to the EtherCat Master?
PLC - Not required. But does this always have to be included?
Data Layer (Non Real Time) - ?
Data Layer (Real Time) ?