EK1541 | EtherCAT Coupler with ID switch, plastic optical fiber

The EK1541 EtherCAT Coupler with a polymer optical fiber (POF) connection is the link between the EtherCAT protocol at fieldbus level and the EtherCAT Terminals. The coupler converts the passing telegrams from Ethernet 100BASE-TX POF hardware to E-bus signal representation. A station consists of a coupler and any number of EtherCAT Terminals that are automatically detected and individually displayed in the process image.

Special features:

• connection technology 2 x polymer optical fiber (POF) connection via Versatile Link socket
• connection lengths up to 50 m
• 3 ID switches for implementing variable topologies
• number of EtherCAT Terminals in the overall system: up to 65,535

The EK1541 has two Versatile Link sockets for POF duplex connectors and three hexadecimal ID switches. The coupler is connected to the network via the upper Ethernet connection. The lower socket may be used to connect further EtherCAT devices in the same segment. With the polymer optical fiber connection, distances between two couplers of up to 50 m can be reached. Unlike the glass fiber, the POF fiber is easily wireable in the field. A group of EtherCAT components can be assigned a unique ID via the hexadecimal ID switches. This group can then be located at any position within the EtherCAT network. Variable topologies are therefore easily implementable. In addition, an EtherCAT junction or an EtherCAT extension can be used for the extension or for setting up a line or star topology.

The system and field supply, each 24 V DC, is provided directly at the coupler. The attached EtherCAT Terminals are supplied with the current required for communication from the supplied system voltage. The coupler can supply a maximum of 5 V and 2 A. Power feed terminals (e.g. EL9410) must be integrated if more current is required. The field supply is forwarded to the individual I/O components via the power contacts with up to 10 A.