Several weeks ago, I have implemented communications between KUKA iiwa and PC using socket communications. Recently, we have brought the EL6695 devices and io devices (EK1100). It seems that it needs different communications between KUKA iiwa and PLC compared with the communication method of socket communications. Is there any tutorial about the communications method between PLC and KUKA iiwa, please? Many thanks in advance.
Communications between KUKA iiwa and PLC(EL6695+EK1100 devices)
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a312514554 -
September 26, 2018 at 5:41 PM -
Thread is marked as Resolved.
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I guess what you need is described in chapter 11 'Bus configuration' and 12 'External control' of the manual.
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[size=2]Robot controller is EtherCat master.[/size]
[size=2]EK1100 is EtherCat slave (you can add I/O modules as you like). It can be controlled from robot directly.[/size]
[size=small]EL6695 is bridge and - it is not needed when adding I/O. It is only used when communicating with another EtherCat master (either another robot controller or PLC)[/size]
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One thing to make it clearer,
KUKA Controller>
X65(Kuka Extension Bus) : EtherCAT
X66(Kuka Line Interface) : EtherNetPC : EtherNet
PLC : digital I/O (depends on which interface module to use)The reason of using EtherCAT modules like EK1100 is to make a bridge between two different interfaces.
The easiest sample is to use EK1100+EL1809+EL2809(coupler, pnp input 16, pnp output 16)
So the connection diagram will be like [KUKA] --(EtherCAT)-- [EK1100/EL..] --(Digital I/O)-- [PLC]
If you want to change 'digital I/O' part with other interfaces, just assemble a module accordingly, and set it up with WorkVisual.You probably used X66 for PC-KUKA socket communication. This time EK1100 module should be connected to X65 using EtherCAT interface.