LabVIEW, EtherCAT and cRIO are not friends...

[GoUp]

Hello.

I am trying to connect some Beckhoff EtherCAT modules to a cRIO and at the beginning everything was looking good, but now I have some serious troubles with the EtherCAT drivers.

When I am trying to start or deploy a project everything is crashing, cRIO is rebooting, PC to cRIO communication is lost and nothing is working. The problem is with the EtherCAT drivers, because if the EtherCAT drivers are disabled everything is working.

Does anybody has any idea what should I try?

Did somebody managed to use Beckhoff EtherCAT modules with a cRIO and LabVIEW 2009?

Any help or reply is much appreciated.

Kind regards,

Greg

[Wire Warrior]

Not knowing alot about EtherCAT, I am not sure I can help you. I did a quick check on the EtherCAT website, and a search of the word "LabVIEW" turned up a couple of examples. Those might help?

http://www.ethercat.org

Good Luck

Jason

[GoUp]

@WireWarrior

Thank you for your reply.

I searched the EtherCAT site, but didn't find anything useful.

I am mostly interested if anybody managed to have a stable communication between a CompactRIO and any Beckhoff EtherCAT modules. I somehow managed to persuade cRIO to communicate with a Beckhoff module, but the communication is not stable (sometimes everything is freezing and even cRIO needs a format to restart working!?).

Kind regards,

Greg

[swenp]

Greg,

we have successfully used Beckhoff EtherCat Bus Coupler + IO Modules with cRIO Controllers in some projects.

What type of hardware are you using exactly? Did you download the latest XML files for your modules from the Beckhoff site? Are you using the latest drivers from NI?

Regards,

Swen

[GoUp]

@Swen

Thank you for confirming that at least somebody used Beckhoff modules in some projects.

Yes I used the latest XML files, but unfortunately for some other reasons I am stuck with LabView 2009 and because of that I am not using the latest NI drivers.

I am using the Beckhoff EK1101 EtherCAT Coupler and a couple of digital inputs and digital outputs modules - nothing special.

The most interesting thing is that when the communication is failing even the cRIO is somehow getting corrupted and it needs a total format, re-install and even after that I must start a new project first to enable the communication, so that the communication is working again for all projects. (I even tried for a short time to use the latest NI drivers and LabView, but the situation did not improve.)

Kind regards,

Greg

[swenp]

Greg,

as this sounds very strange to me I would contact NI support directly.

We have also used the EK1101 and it can be a problem to get them working correctly.

But the cRIO controller shouldn't be corrupted in any case I think, that sounds bad.

Good luck,

Swen