Scan Engine & EtherCAT Custom Device Feedback

[joshe]

I will try to look today and let you know.  The project is due soon, so I need to have this up and working in some configuration.

[joshe]

Ok, I need some help.  I have never used the Distributed System manager before, and need to know how to get it to see the ethercat system.  Right now I see the host system that has a DAQmx and fieldpoint folders.  How do I set this up to see the PXI EtherCAT data?  Does anything special need to be running on the PXI RT?

Thanks!

Josh

[Devin_K]

Hi Josh,

To see your system in Distributed Systems Manager, right-click on "My Systems", select "Add System...", then enter the IP address of your PXI system in the dialog.  After that, you can expand the RT target and see all of the IO hosted by the system.

[joshe]

Thanks.  I got the Distribution System Manager to show the RT system. The 9219 is showing either its max and min values (pt100 RTD Deg F, 2331F and -412F).  This is the same thing I am seeing in VeriStand.  This only happens if I have 2 EtherCat Masters installed, with one Master it is working fine.  Anything else I can help you with?  Is this a driver issue?  I just upgraded to NI RIO 12.1 to support the Scan Engine EtherCAT Addon 3.7.

Thanks!

Josh

[StephenB]

Well rats. That is no good. It means it is probably a problem in the driver. If I can reproduce this, I can file a "showstopper" issue to our driver team and get it prioritized right away... since data corruption is the worst.

Can you tell me your exact layout? Maybe its easiest to attach the sysdef since its all inside there. (I need to know where everything is, masters, slaves, modules)

You may be able to work around it by moving slaves/modules around but keeping two masters

[joshe]

I will post the layout system def.  This is a dummy one I created for testing, but it should work for you. 

[StephenB]

ok will try to reproduce. thanks for your patience

[joshe]

Hi Stephen,

Have you gotten any results or a solution?  Can I help with anything else?

[StephenB]

Josh,

We are still working on getting everything together and reproducing it. Sorry for the delay - there is a 3 day conference going on here. Hope to make progress soon.

[0utlaw]

Hello Josh,

I was able to set up and run a number of tests with various multi-master multi-slave EtherCAT configurations and have not been able to replicate the behavior you have described where the 9219 modules return alternate low and high values when configured for 3-wire RTD- in all cases tested (NI VeriStand 2012 and/or LabVIEW 2012 SP1) the modules appear to (correctly) rail to the "high" reading and remain there. As I understand it, this erroneous behavior only occurs when the modules are open, correct? What happens when an RTD is in place? Do you see the same thing, or something similar?

At this point, I have the following suggestions:

1) Ground the channels in question rather than leaving the circuit open; confirm that a similar value is returned.
2) Disconnect/remove the slaves on the second master (deploy with two masters but only the three ECAT chassis)
3) Increase the cyclic data bandwidth and decrease the primary control loop rates