Anyone seen this?

I think I recognize the screen name from the forum but I'm not sure:
github.com/MetalMusings/MyOwnEtherCATDevice/tree/Video8

I came across that because I'm actually doing almost the same thing right now. I was kind of surprised because the components are readily available and not all that expensive yet I haven't seen anything EtherCAT that's actually useful really spoken about here. Just the Beckoff stuff that's astronomical in cost and some servo drives.

I happened to be working on a PCB with pretty much the same hardware but I was searching for what code is currently out there when I came across that. Glad to see someone's done some of that work. I just thought it was odd that I see alot of talk about EtherCAT but nobody using stuff like this, or modules that don't cost $500 each. Honestly the EtherCAT chip itself has 16 GPIO so a pretty simple EtherCAT IO board can be made for like $20

I did draw an ethercat pcb that was supposed to be used with an RP2040, unfortunately that was during the big chip shortage so I never finished it. Everytime I thought I was done, some component was out of stock.

You cant make the thing for 20$, you are going to end up something like double. The chip is around 10, caps, resistors, crystal, flash, optos, fets 15, pcb 5.

At that point you have parts, calculate your time for the project and add up another number.

At this point you have a pcb you made.

Now compare what else a company like bechoff needs to do. Documentation, certification, stocking, warranty and the list goes on.

You cant compare parts cost for something you make yourself to an actual certified product.

RDA wrote:

I did draw an ethercat pcb that was supposed to be used with an RP2040, unfortunately that was during the big chip shortage so I never finished it. Everytime I thought I was done, some component was out of stock.

You cant make the thing for 20$, you are going to end up something like double. The chip is around 10, caps, resistors, crystal, flash, optos, fets 15, pcb 5.

At that point you have parts, calculate your time for the project and add up another number.

At this point you have a pcb you made.

Now compare what else a company like bechoff needs to do. Documentation, certification, stocking, warranty and the list goes on.

You cant compare parts cost for something you make yourself to an actual certified product.
 

Let's backup now. I didn't mean you could make one for $20, I meant any operation that's going to make more than a few can easily get the whole BOM under $20. I didn't say anyone could make money off a $20 EtherCAT board, my point was just that I don't see why we're still in the land of $400 input cards. This is the land of YingYang VFDs and $3 BOBs.....a reasonably priced EtherCAT controller shouldn't be elusive.

Nobody's "comparing stuff they can make themselves" with certified Beckoff this or that...The PC you're running LinuxCNC on or LinuxCNC itself isn't certified for anything so I don't think anyone cares about certs...they use it cuz it's what's available. Even the Chinese no name stuff is kinda expensive from what I've seen. There's plenty of room for someone to hop in on this space, Mesa cards are still king but there's plenty of stuff that just doesn't need all that.

I'm fairly certain someone could even port HM2 to use an EtherCAT IP core on existing Mesa cards. I don't know anything about VHDL or Verilog or whatever but I've seen people do all kinds of neat stuff with HM2 over the years, off the top of my head I can't think of any reason it's not technically possible.

tommylight wrote:

His youtube channel
www.youtube.com/@metalmusings/videos
 

Yeah his videos are all linked in the git....I think I watched all of them as it was pretty interesting.

Wish he explained why he changed ESC chips between boards.

andypugh wrote:

To sell an EtherCAT slave device you need a licence from Beckhoff (unless you are Chinese and don't care).

That would need to be factored in to the price, but I don't know how much they charge.
 

I don't think that is correct. That's kinda like the GPL stuff, people always think a certain thing and repeat it but nobody really ever looks at it. The cost of the EtherCAT slave device is part of the ESC chip. Taken from the EtherCAT website:

• 3.3 How about licences? There is a licence for implementing an EtherCAT master which is free of charge - the agreement demands compatibility, ensures that the licence remains free of charge and provides legal certainty. For slave devices EtherCAT has adopted the CAN license model (CAN is an excellent example for a standardized open technology that is protected by patents): The small license fee is "embedded" in the EtherCAT Slave Controller (ESC) chip, so ESC vendors need a license, but device manufacturers, end users, system integrators, tool manufacturers etc. do not have to pay a license.

I do believe you need a Vendor ID from the ETG. That vendor ID get's written to the EEPROM that the ESC boots from. From what I gather, that is also "free of charge"

Vendor IDEach EtherCAT compliant device has to implement the worldwide unique Vendor ID assigned by ETG. The EtherCAT Vendor ID Usage is governed by the ETG Vendor ID Policy and the corresponding Vendor ID agreement, which asks for conformance with the EtherCAT specifications. In order to clarify this policy, the general rules are repeated below:

• Each vendor of an EtherCAT device has to be an ETG member and has to obtain and maintain a valid Vendor ID from the EtherCAT Technology Group
• The Vendor ID is free of charge
• The vendor has to implement the Vendor ID in each EtherCAT device prior to making it available on the market
• Manufacturers of machines, which integrate and use EtherCAT devices in combination with or in such machines, are not required to apply for and use a Vendor ID

That doesn't have anything to do with "Conformance Testing", which is also not required. A Company like Beckoff will likely do something like that and charge accordingly. But there's no reason for anyone else to do it:

4.5 Do we have to submit our EtherCAT device to a Conformance Test Center?   No. Performing the conformance test at an official EtherCAT Test Center is optional - however, your customer may require a conformance certificate, which is only issued after passing the test at such a lab. You have to ensure conformance by applying the official Conformance Test Tool (CTT) at your R&D facilities, though. The CTT is licensed as a subscription in order to ensure the long term maintenance and further development of the tool with a yearly contribution.

So from what I can find, there's absolutely nothing stopping anyone from just buying some ESC chips, making a thing, selling it, and charging what they charge. If I'm missing something please post a link.

Just saw Mesa Electronics is a member of the ETG.....saw that coming lol

I can't edit the above post because it turns into a big blob. What I did realize by re-reading the text that I posted myself is that they probably get you on the "Conformance Testing". You don't have to send the device to a lab for the ETG to do it as I cited, but it looks like you do actually have to use some kind of "Conformance Test Tool" to validate something or other and it's likely that this is where they hit you with some charge. I haven't found anything restrictive about the "license" itself.

I'm curious what this Conformance Test Tool is so I'll have to look more into that

I contacted the ETG and got the details. It's pretty much as I said about the EtherCAT license stuff itself, there's no cost, there's just a requirement to be a registered business.

I was also correct about the whole "Conformance Testing" thing. There's a device that Beckoff sells with an annual license  and it reports back conformance test data on whatever device. I got a quote from Beckoff for it, it's actually not too bad. It is prohibitive to go through all that to sell 3 of a thing on Tindie, but it's not a deal breaker to make something reasonably low cost available if you're going to sell a fair amount.

So I guess the question is "what is something that people would actually buy?" You can't really beat Mesa cards even with EtherCAT...it'd be nice if they sold one but a microcontroller based machine controller is not going to be better than a Mesa FPGA card EtherCAT or not. I'm working on a PCB for a EtherCAT based control panel but people don't really seem all that interested in that. I am a business and can join the ETG and get the Beckoff stuff for CTT but unless I can identify something that people actually want it's pointless to do it. I'm terrible with software so I'd have to get help, paid or otherwise to get it going properly....but I don't really think it's out of the question.