AM3359 Industrial Communications Engine

Hi,

You can force install real time ethernet driver for twincat after selecting incompatible NIC if you see your NIC listed there. However this does not gurantee real time performance.

For evaluation purposes this should work - but for serious development/ distributed clocks function a desktop pc installed with recommended intel NIC on pci slot is required.

Thanks for the feedback,

I tried updating the drivers by following these instructions : http://infosys.beckhoff.com/espanol.php?content=../content/1034/tcsystemmanager/fieldbus/rtethernet/tci8255xinstal.htm&id=11044 

with no such luck. I also tried, what I think was your advice, and tried to update the drivers directly from the 'Installation of TwinCAT RT- Ethernet Adapters' screen that I was stuck on before. Again no luck and I tried clicking the 'install' button for each of the three Incompatable NICs... I am not sure what to try next. The device is not recognized at all- the board has the USB connection with my machine and I have the ethernet cable plugged into the router in conjunciton an ethernet cable connection from my machine.

-Colin

Hi,

We did not have much luck running TwinCAT on Windows7 64-bit here as well. Potential workaround is to run WinXP as a virtual machine (Vmware/Oracle) on Win7 which of course does not guarantee real time performance. Drivers are normally provided by Beckhoff and bundled with TwinCAT package for WinXP.

Also did you install TwinCAT 2.11 x64 Engineering, Build 2224? It seems to solve the issue based on this thread - http://www.linkedin.com/groups/TwinCat-211-on-64-bit-1860933.S.44867219

Also please keep in mind that putting router in between master and slave is not good. Yes - there is special EtherCAT router provided by Beckhoff which will work fine. EtherCAT is proprietary network which does on the fly processing of packets and mixing normal network and EtherCAT network should be avoided.

It will not help here anyway as the issue is Win7 not able to detect/install proper drivers.

Hi Prateesh

I got my hands on an older machine with XP on it. I did the exact same setup as before except, per your advice, I am not using the router/switch anymore. Now there is a direct line between the ICE and the XP machine.

I had better luck however am still having some issues. Referring to the illustrated instructions that come in the box, I still am stuck on step 4-5, as I mentioned before. However, now I can scan for devices as described in step 6. I successfully recognize an EtherCAT device as described in step 7. When it comes to step 8, I do not have on my screen what the instructions say I am supposed to be seeing. I think this has to do with not being able to initialize the ethernet drivers which goes back to steps 4-5.

Attached is a screenshot illustrating the limited feedback I am getting. Any idea where I screwed up the initializing? Thanks again

Colin 

Hi,

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Configuring_TwinCAT_For_AM335x

Step 4> Did you see your NIC in installed and ready to use devices ? Make sure it is done by selecting and clicking install

If yes - remove all other protocols other than TwinCAT and TCP/IP from NIC properties. Make sure ethernet cable is connected to ICE J2 (PRU MII0)

Then skip to Step8  - TwinCAT automatically detects supported protocols like EtherCAT if you scan devices

You must see Devicen(EtherCAT) while scanning - In the screenshot, I see "RT ethernet" instead, this actually imply something went wrong

Under Installed and Ready to use Devices, I can see 'Local Area Connection - TwinCAT - Intel PCI Ethernet Adapter (Gigabyte)'. I cannot click install for that option, nor any other fields - although that is  the only device listed.

Also, regarding this step, where is this directory that needs to be copied?

*

2. Copy sdk\protcols\ethercat\ecat_appl\esi\TI_ESC.xml and sdk\examples\ethercat\esi\TiEtherCATLib.xml to <Drive>:\TwinCAT\Io\EtherCAT folder

*

That sdk\protocols\... does not seem to be anywhere in the package I installed on either the windows 7 nor the XP machines