To enable the EtherCAT port, switch to the Network Settings under the cRIO in MAX, and select the EtherCAT option under adapter mode. Once the installation is complete, check in MAX that the software component is available as shown below.
Open the NI Measurement and Automation Explorer (MAX), discover your remote target (cRIO), and select add software.įrom the list of available software, select the NI-Industrial Communications for EtherCAT component (latest version at the time of writing is 18.5, check this link for compatibility with your LabVIEW version). Note that this software is only available after installation on the host.
Once the NI-Industrial Communications for EtherCAT software is installed on the host machine, you will also need to install extra software on the cRIO. The drivers can be found here, with some compatibility notes located here. First, install the NI-Industrial Communications for EtherCAT divers on your LabVIEW host PC. The cRIO EtherCAT Master port can also be used to communicate to other EtherCAT slaves (see example below).īefore using EtherCAT on the cRIO, two simple configuration steps are required. This port can then be used to communicate to the NI9144 expansion chassis (shown on the right hand side, used for additional c-Series modules via EtherCAT Slave). The lower of the two RJ45 (Ethernet) ports on the cRIO (shown on the left hand side) can be configured to work as an EtherCAT Master port instead of TCP/IP. We suspect this inherent support is largely due to the NI9144 expansion chassis, which uses EtherCAT to communicate with the cRIO master. c-Series module) or license is required to use EtherCAT on the cRIO. CanOpen, Ethernet / IP etc), no additional hardware (e.g.
Unlike many other real-time protocols (e.g. The NI cRIO system is inherently designed to deal with the EtherCAT communication protocol.