What do i need exactly for ethercat ? Recommended hardware??

@bob8020
Do not change subject tittle, makes it impossible to find when searching.
Thank you.

make a video, put it on youtube or rumble, my next machine build is going ethercat

hello,

i do not what kind of hardware do you think, but from my point of view is really nice hardware stuff from producer called delta ... they have a great servo packs with great prices... then also they have kopplers and IO cards which should be used here... also have pulsetrain interface (pulse/dir) which is really like mesa card... beckhoff ethercat hardware is great, but price and avaibility was poor few years ago... 

I am personally working with old kollmorgen stuff and newer pilz which I bought at scrapeyard... great stuff but there is no support and no documentation avaible... delta has all stuff avaible and all software free... 

For PC it is very easy... you defenetely need Intel network chipset... main stream (beckhoff too) using just intel chipset because they have predeterminated RT, DC etc on board... lets check ethercat network drivers and then check chipset on you hardware if it is compatible... but nowdays there are some play because of generic driver makes things easier... 

if you what hear something more precise, let us know...

regards

Glad the Delta drives are working well for you, that's a good data point as their manuals and software seem good (like Beckhoff).

Has anyone tried a gantry where a pair of servos are needed to move one axis, I have read manuals for three mfg. so far and they all suggest an 'automatic' method where the drive software moves the motor to figure out the inertia and resonance...

For a dual motor gantry I think they would need some sort of coordinated scheme where (somehow) both motors move in sync. In no manual have I found anything like that at all. Yes there are the two axis and three axis controllers but I've not seen dual motor on one axis mentioned. Maybe there is some trick for tuning one motor at a time.

My personal experience thus far is that it is an awful process. I tune them to the same parameters since the JL/JM inertia estimation is almost identical.

Process (roughly):
-Movement only through linuxcnc as two joints on one axis (Gantry mode)
-Using a notebook with asda tuning software, connect to one drive via usb
(A) -Move the axis using linuxcnc and check following error
-determine adjustment and edit servo 1, then switch over to servo 2 and perform identical adjustment
Repeat from (A)

Two notebooks are advisable, as you well spent a lot of time fiddling with the serial cables and reconnecting.

In case of the delta servo drives , if you are using the A2 series , if I'm not mistaken they have a dedicated port for gantry control.

www.deltaww.com/en-us/FAQ/2076