Displaying items by tag: Beckhoff

Hygiene regulations in the food industry place high demands on drive and control components with regard to surfaces and materials, which must be able to withstand regular exposure and resistance to aggressive cleaners. By coating a standard servomotor so that it is suitable for use around food products, Beckhoff breaks new ground: the white coating, which is typical in the food industry, is compliant with FDA (Food and Drug Administration) regulations and guarantees that the products manufactured with it are not in any way tainted by chemicals.

The FDA-compliant motors differ from the standard types only by their surface and by the stainless steel shaft, otherwise they are identical. The advantage for the user is that additional motor types do not have to be ‘designed into’ the machine in the case of mixed use of coated and standard motors. A further advantage is the price: the coating adds only about 30 percent to the price of the standard motors, depending on the size. Not only that, the IP 67 design permits use in harsh industrial environments.

The flange sizes 2…7 from the Beckhoff AM3000 series are optionally available with the new surface coating.

The Beckhoff EtherCAT Box modules in the new 16-channel variant can be integrated directly into any EtherCAT network. The high EtherCAT performance of 100 Mbit/s is once again retained right into every IP 67 box. With an exactly double housing width of 126 x 60 x 26.5 mm (5-in x 2.4-in x 1-in), the modules offer suitable space for 16 digital inputs or outputs. The modules are fitted with M8 or M12 sockets for the signal connections. Due to the doubling of the number of channels per EtherCAT Box, the user saves time and cost, both with the EtherCAT cabling and the power cabling.

The following I/O variants are available, in each case with optional M8 or M12 screw connectors:

• EP1809: 16-channel digital input
• EP2809: 16-channel digital output
• EP2339: 16-channel digital I/O (freely configurable)

The mounting points are taken over by the compact, 30 mm (1.2-in) wide EtherCAT Box modules, so that the 16-channel box modules can be installed conveniently with the same grid spacing.

With the function blocks in the TwinCAT PLC Motion Control XFC library, the time stamps of EtherCAT Terminals can be acquired with high precision and converted into the corresponding axis positions. The EL1252 digital input terminal records fast binary control signals with a resolution of 1 nanosecond (ns). This technology permits signals to be traced exactly over time and synchronised with EtherCAT distributed clocks across the system. This allows, for example, the storage of the current position (latches) at arbitrary places in the EtherCAT system. An appropriate touch probe block according to the PLCopen standard is available in the library. Up to now, high precision latching has only been possible directly on the drive, often with only very few inputs. This can now take place locally at any point using the XFC library and the appropriate time stamp-based EtherCAT Terminals. This saves wiring and makes virtually any number of latch inputs possible.

On the other hand, it is very simple to convert axis positions into highly precise times. This allows high precision cam controllers to be realised. The time stamp-based digital outputs of the EL2252 or EL2262 EtherCAT Terminals can similarly be arranged at any point in the EtherCAT fieldbus system. A TwinCAT PLC function block according to the PLCopen standard is similarly available for cam controllers.

The prerequisite for the maximum attainable accuracy is the automatic dead time compensation of axes, which is available for EtherCAT and SERCOS drives from TwinCAT 2.11 onward. An exact correlation between time and position can only be achieved with dead time compensation.

Multi-system room automation is of great importance both for efficient operation of buildings and for the individual comfort of the users and, over and above that, to offer substantial savings potential. In the Beckhoff I/O system, an extensive range of over 400 Bus Terminals is available to building technicians for the connection of all building sensors and actuator systems.

The new BC9191 Room Controller closes the gap in very price-sensitive projects with firmly defined functions. By bundling certain functions in one module, the compact Room Controllers are ideally suited, for example, for installation in hotel rooms or office spaces. Rooms or areas with repetitive requirements only require one-time programming of the Room Controller, which is then simply duplicated, depending on the number.

The BC9191 can be used as a compact controller or as decentralized intelligence for room control. Pre-installed software functions facilitate commissioning. On top of that, the BC9191 can also be freely programmed using TwinCAT automation software from Beckhoff. For networking, the room controller is equipped with two Ethernet ports with integrated 2-channel switch. The I/O stations can thus be configured with a line topology, instead of the classic star topology.

In order to implement additional functions, the BC9191 Room Controller can be modularly extended with the entire range of Bus Terminals via the K-bus interface. Standard Bus Terminals and the sub-bus systems relevant for building automation, such as EnOcean, LON, EIB, DALI and M-bus, are optionally expandable.

Integrated I/O signals:

• digital inputs:
  • 3 x 24 V DC (e.g. window contact, dew point, occupancy sensor)
• analog inputs:
  • 3 x 0...10 V (e.g. CO₂ sensor, air quality sensor, brightness sensor)
  • 1 x PT/Ni1000 (-20…+60 °C) for air temperature measurement
  • 1 x resistance measurement for set value specification
• digital outputs
  • 1 x 230 V AC, 10 A, relay (e.g. water re-heater)
  • 3 x 230 V AC, 1 A, relay (3-stage fan)
  • 2 x 230 V AC, 1 A, triac (e.g. valves for heating and cooling)
• analog outputs:
  • 2 x 0…10 V (e.g. volumetric air flow controller)

Beckhoff integrates BACnet/IP as a pure software solution into its TwinCAT automation suite. The BACnet/IP Server and Client are executable on all Beckhoff Industrial PCs and Embedded PCs. This means that every Beckhoff Embedded PC becomes a BACnet controller with the software extension. Since the I/O level (Bus Terminals or EtherCAT Terminals) can be added directly to the modular Embedded PCs, Beckhoff’s comprehensive range of Bus Terminals with over 400 different signal types is also available for BACnet applications. In a modular system, for example, information can be queried via temperature measurement or an occupancy sensor and sent via the appropriate data output to the heating or lighting controller.

The BACnet solution for TwinCAT supports all services of a BBC device (BACnet Building Controller). The BACnet objects are created in the TwinCAT System Manager and can be parameterised and linked there. Data from an I/O terminal or from the TwinCAT program can be connected directly to a BACnet object via a cyclic interface. An acyclic interface is used for reading and writing the “properties” of a BACnet object, so that these can be accessed from the PLC program during runtime. With the aid of TwinCAT, a network can be scanned for BACnet devices and objects or “properties” can be accessed.

The market introduction of the BACnet/IP solution is expected to be in late 2010.

Please send readers' questions regarding “BACnet/IP” to: Beckhoff Automation GmbH, Eiserstraße 5, 33415 Verl, Germany Phone: +49 (0) 5246 963-0, Fax: +49 (0) 5246 963-198 e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Internet: www.beckhoff.de

The HD Bus Terminals are available in various versions, such as 16-channel terminals for digital inputs or outputs, 8-channel terminals for digital inputs or outputs with 2-wire connection, or “multi-tasking” combination terminals with eight digital inputs and eight digital outputs, offering the user a high degree of flexibility.

There is a broad range of applications for HD Bus Terminals in building automation: for example, 8-way buttons with integrated LEDs, for indicating the switching statuses, can be wired completely to a single 12 mm Bus Terminal. Eight thermal drives can be controlled completely by a single 12 mm output terminal using the 2-wire technique. On the input side, eight window or door contacts can be connected to one HD Bus Terminal using the 2-wire technique. With the compact I/O modules, the user saves valuable installation space in the control cabinet and the cost per channel is lowered significantly. A further advantage is the simplification of system assembly. Despite the high packing density, the convenient layout of the connection points is retained.