Network Interface Card Recommendation

Hello Experts,

Doubt:01

It is found that using onboard LAN Driver is not at all good for Ethercat Communication.
We would encounter connection drops and other inconsistencies If it is Realtek.

Should I buy a PCIe Network card or Can I use Realtek?

Doubt:02
 
     I am Planning to Replace my Pulse Driver DM556 with Ethercat Stepper Driver ECR86 from Rtelligent.
How is the micro stepping configured ? My setting was 1600 steps per revolution. (Aprox 83.5 Pulse per millimeter)

 

If you already have a RealTek card you can try with r8125-dkms or r8168-dkms driver depending on the model.
Often this is will give full network performance. "sudo apt install r8168-dkms"

If you are looking to buy a PC, buy one with an Intel card. You can also buy a PciE Intel card afterwards.

:02
You set micro-stepping in SDO 0x2001:0 which is number of steps per motor revolution.
Then you need to match that in cia402.0.pos-scale which is number of steps per mm/inch.
github.com/dbraun1981/hal-cia402/tree/main/example
 
 

I would try the realtek dkms driver and the additional RT kennel tuning tweaks in my YouTube guide and I think you will have good performance


If you do buy a new NIC card.definitely get  an Intel card preferably one that supports time sensitive networking (TSN) Eg i210 series en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Sensitive_Networking this gives real time network performance (finally) and is supported by ethercat. Take care as some of the intel cards have different versions and the entry level card for that model does not support TSN. Not sure if this will require slave level support.

edit to use TSN you need to: sudo apt install linuxptp
packages.debian.org/bookworm/linuxptp

I wonder if TSN works. At least without modifications.
Do you have any real-world experience with that?

In the  flyer I read that while the master can be unaffected, at some point the slave needs to support TSN either directly or via a TSN switch in front of it.

The i210 is an excellent choice, albeit a bit old now. I have good luck with the i217 and also with the latest dirt-cheap i226-v adapters. Older adapters use the igb driver, newer use the igc driver, with some different options and defaults.

I just put an intel i226-V PCIe card in on igc driver.  It seems silly to get a 2.5G card to run at 100M but it is cheap and works so far with no problems.  You can check the driver list here:  IgH EtherCAT Master: Device Drivers  for supported drivers.

I am also curious if TSN has any effect, I have not seen how this integrates into ethercat or linuxcnc.