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Omron Delta EtherCat Communication

Communication between Delta Electronics devices and Omron Automation Systems devices with EtherCat Communications protocol is quite simple.

Required Components​

  • EtherCat Master
  • EtherCat Slave
  • Cat 5 or above cable
  • ESI

Using Omron's NX/NJ motion controller as a EtherCat master. Delta's RTU-ECAT as EtherCat slave. Both devices are connected via Cat 6 cable.

ESI​

ESI(EtherCAT Slave Information) is XML scheme file which contains EtherCAT P(Derivative of POE) and Slave Configuration Information(SCI).

For RTU module, Delta provides ESI file from their Download Centre.

Download ESI file​

  • link1 (SHA256 Hash: D052E23CA544C6C5649E43B7C7DDA1A5EAF3A9A94F2982DF8D6E65AFC4CC1E36)
  • link2 (SHA256 Hash: FF649AD45B5255AAC6E63C6DB21A1741026D1E5068092CACC7431206992742BE )

After download completed, open the zip file and extract Delta RTU-ECAT.xml.

Import Library​

To import the ESI file,

  • Navigate to Configuarations and Setup in Multiview Explorer and Select EtherCAT.
  • Right click on Master and select Display ESI Library
  • Click on Install(File) on pop-up menu & Select extracted Delta RTU-ECAT.xml file.
  • Navigate to the bottom in the ESI Library to check on Device in the library.

Delta RTU in ESI Library

Add EtherCAT Slave​

After library is imported, imported devices can be found in the Toolbox under all vendors or Delta Electronics, Inc. as EtherCAT PLC. Double click on RTU-ECAT to insert to the EtherCAT devices and Set Node address based your Network topology.

Delta RTU in Toolbox

Adding IO modules to RTU​

To add IO modules to the RTU unit, Select Edit Module Configuration. Select Required Module from Toolbox. select the slot and double click to insert to that slot.

Delta RTU config

note

RTU-ECAT accepts up to 14 IO Modules

Conclusion​

One downside with this approach is, checking & syncing actual configuration is not possible.