Mini-EtherCAT Master

Trio Motion's MC4N-Mini EtherCAT master is a new concept for its high performance Motion Coordinator series motion and machine controllers. The EtherCAT dedicated controller can handle up to 32 axes of servo or stepper drives and 1024 machine I/O points. The product's built-in expandable library of the market leading EtherCAT digital drives and I/O modules allow systems to be automatically detected and configured in a plug and play way that is not usually available for this open and increasingly popular protocol. Featuring an updated configuration of the 532MHz ARM 11 processor, the device includes 64-bit integer position registers for extremely high resolution and precision accuracy - making it ideal for high axis count tightly coordinated machines or robotic applications.The new product supports multi-axis motion control through linear, circular, helical or spherical interpolation in addition to electronic cams, linked axes, line shaft, gearing functions and more. EtherCAT slave drives and I/O can be connected and run in cyclic synchronous position, speed or torque modes provided these are supported by the drive. Furthermore, optional software modules allow the powerful motion engine to control multiple robotic and kinematic transformations to run simultaneously, enabling the simplified programming of otherwise complex robotic motion systems including Parallel 2-Arm, Delta 3-Arm, Wire Positioning, 6 Axis Anthropomorphic and SCARA geometries.