Hello there,

This post is somehow related to the one of POWERLINK and EtherCAT.

Hilscher company is providing cifX boards that can run major field busses and Real Time Ethernet stacks either as Master or Slave.

For more information please dig here : www.hilscher.com

There is a Linux driver and the API is the same whichever stack is used.

Would there be some interest in developing a driver for this boards to your I/O System ?

Thanks for your feed back.

Best Regards,
Steve

Hi slos,

This sounds really interesting. I am a little bit familiar already with the cifX boards and know that you have a generalized api to them.

We have currently implemented support for your Profibus-board. This was performed as an exam work for a engineer student so my own knowledeg is not very deep.

Of course it would be nice to be able to support a lot of the other boards aswell. I guess though that even the api is the same it is unique what you need to send to the mailboxes for each type of board.

Thanks.

/Robert

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your reply.

In fact, most field bus systems have a cyclic communication were I/O are exchanged and acyclic communication were configuration, parameterization and diagnostics take place.

The Hilscher cifX API is built on a Dual Port Memory which is laid out with a process image for inputs and outputs, filled up automatically by the cyclic communication, and send and receive mailboxes to exchange acyclic messages.

Then, two functions permits the reading inputs and writing outputs and two others allow to get and put packets.

Of course, each field bus or Real Time Ethernet system will have a different way to organize the data in object dictionary or the like and to manage with configuration, parameterization and diagnostics. So there is a message API which is also different from one stack to the other.

But the main part is the process image which is common to all systems.

Field bus configuration, parameterization and diagnostics are done with SYCON.net, a tool based on FDT/DTM concept, hardly available on other platform than Windows.
Still it is possible to do anything in application program via the API

So I think that only one I/O system driver would be necessary, even if different config/diag tools could be laid on top.

Are you sure your student has worked on cifX ? Wasn't it on CIF one, the older boards ?

Anyway, if there is already some work done we could perhaps reuse it.
I would really be happy to help there.

Best Regards,
Steve

By the way, if interested in FDT/DTM :
www.fdtgroup.org/

Regards,
Steve

Post edited by: slos, at: 2010/09/10 22:56

Hi Steve,

Yoy might be correct, it could have been one of the older CIF-cards (I'm quite sure). I will look deeper into this to get better knowledge.

Of course any help is appreciated. If you want to do something I will give you any help you need to understand how the i/o-systems are implemented in the Proview-sourcecode.

I will look into FDT/FDM aswell.

The reason for my interest in buses like EtherCAT and Ethernet Powerlink is that there exists open source stacks and you could run them on a x86-computer together with Proview and thus reducing the price for a control system (just an extra ethernet card).

Thanks for you interest.

/Robert

Post edited by: robert, at: 2010/09/11 02:35

Hi Robert,

I will not debate about the merits / interest of Hilscher boards, except if I am asked. I am not here for that. People looking for a solution will certainly consider several options and the choice is theirs. My question is only if someone could be interested in a driver for them.

Please check about the available CIF stuff. The API is different from the one of cifX but the philosophy is about the same. So it may be a good starting point.

I don't promise anything soon as it would be a personal project.

Thanks for showing interest.

Steve