Corrected from:
PLC Designer V3.14
Response of the new version:
After scanning for devices, EtherCAT slaves with more than two ports can be inserted into the PLC project in the PLC Designer.
What happens?
After copying the devices detected during a device search via EtherCAT to a PLC Designer project, an error message appears that says that the slaves under the multi-port slave cannot be inserted into the project.
When does this behaviour occur?
If there is a slave with more than two ports in the physical EtherCAT bus, the slaves under the multi-port slave are not displayed in a hierarchical structure but in a flat hierarchy in the "Scan for devices" dialog when scanning for devices (menu item "Scan for devices" in the context menu of the EtherCAT master). When the search result is inserted into the project, an error message appears.
An example of a multi-port slave is the Beckhoff EK1100 bus coupler, etc.
Which products are affected?
PLC Designer V3.0 and higher
Short-term measures:
If you want to use the device search to copy the bus structure to a PLC project, disconnect the multi-port slave from the EtherCAT bus before scanning for devices and insert it manually into the project after scanning for devices and inserting the search result into the project.
Evaluation/recommendations:
Inserting an EtherCAT bus structure that has been detected online via the device search of the PLC Designer into a PLC project fails if a multi-port slave of an external manufacturer is connected to the EtherCAT bus. It is, however, possible to insert multi-port slaves manually into a PLC project.
