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Parker drives option board cuts Ethernet costs
Ref: PHE065
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Parker Hannifin, the global leader in motion and control technologies, has launched an Ethernet option board for its AC890 modular and AC890PX high power modular system drives. The new option has been designed to make open fieldbus communications possible in applications where previously implementation costs would have been prohibitive.
Based on EtherCAT (Ethernet for Control Automation Technology), the new board option is essentially an open high performance Ethernet-based fieldbus system, which is easy to configure in star, tree, ring, master/slave and other network topologies. It is ideal in automation applications which require short data update cycle times, a high degree of synchronisation and low hardware costs.
Typical automation networks are characterised by short communication instructions that do not fill the data frames by which they are transmitted. This leads to low bandwidth utilisation and thus to poor overall network performance. In contrast, EtherCAT processes information on the fly, with data being passed to the field devices continuously instead of one instruction at a time. In many industrial automation networks, this can lead to the entire system being addressed in a single data frame transmission.
For applications involving drives and servo, EtherCAT has an integral distributed clock mechanism, which resolves to one nanosecond to maintain perfect synchronisation of all axes and functions. This eliminates the jitter effect experienced with some Ethernet solutions and in turn removes the need for special counteracting hardware. Thus, EtherCAT can be implemented solely in software on any standard Ethernet MAC, even without a dedicated communication coprocessor.
Gateway devices allow EtherCAT to be easily integrated with existing fieldbus networks such as CANopen, DeviceNet and Profibus. No special master card is required as the onboard Ethernet controller is sufficient, and infrastructure costs are low because no switches or hubs are needed and standard cabling is used throughout. The auto-configuration also means there is no manual address setting to be done, removing the hidden cost of implementation.
The new option board is suitable for use with Parker’s AC890CD Common Bus Drive, AC890SD Standalone Drive and AC890PX Drive. It has galvanically isolated bus electronics and LEDs to indicate network and module status. It offers up to 256 bytes of fast cyclic (100bits/sec) I/O in each direction and 128 DSE input registers.
About Parker Hannifin
With annual sales exceeding $12 billion in fiscal year 2011, Parker Hannifin is the world's leading diversified manufacturer of motion and control technologies and systems, providing precision-engineered solutions for a wide variety of mobile, industrial and aerospace markets. The company employs approximately 58,000 people in 47 countries around the world. Parker has increased its annual dividends paid to shareholders for 55 consecutive fiscal years, among the top five longest-running dividend-increase records in the S&P 500 index. For more information, visit the company's web site at www.parker.com, or its investor information web site at www.phstock.com.
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