Stepper Driver Control With Ethercat

Hi Guys,

First time posting here... so forgive me if is a question that has an obvious answer!

I am just wondering if anyone has used an Ethercat card to drive the stp and dir pins of a stepper motor driver card. I am aware of a project that uses a Ethercat card (EL7041) to connect to the motor windings directly, however this card lacks the voltage output that is required for my steppers. I imagine a digital output card at 5V would be able to achieve this, but would require a bit of hands on HAL linking! I am able to do this, but any insight from someone that has tried (or achieved) would be appreciated!

The reason I am so keen on using the Ethercat Bus to drive the steppers is that I am using an industrial fanless PC on another project that as well as running the Ethercat Bus, runs some Rexroth Servo Drives running over Ethercat. If I could continue to use the same industrial PC on both machines that would be a big plus.

Thanks in advance,

Luke

A quick search shows this one www.ethercat.org/en/products/46890720C40...BDBF3D69D0844269.htm that seems to do the trick.
But I would think the best way is to find a ethercat stepper driver. I have just used the rtelligent ect60 that goes up to 80 VDC/6A and there is another, ect86, that goes up to 100VDC/8A. Leadshine has two series of stepper drives that goes up to 100VDC/8A and I am sure there are more.