Galil Motion Control Offers EtherCAT Drive

The EDD-3701x EtherCAT slave drive joins Galil’s EtherCAT Family.  This family has grown to include two EtherCAT masters and an I/O slave with both digital and analog I/O points.  The EDD-3701x is a motor amplifier that operates in an EtherCAT distributed system where there are up to 32 slave drives and one master. It has a daisy chain topology using standard CAT5 Ethernet cables.  The EDD-3701x can interface with Galil masters (DMC-500x0 and DMC-52xx0) for sophisticated applications or with TwinCAT for very simple applications.

The EDD-3701x series has the ability to control brushed, brushless, steppers, and microstepping motors. Unlike the competition, the EDD-3701x can both control a motor and also has 8 digital inputs, 4 digital outputs, 2 analog inputs, and 2 analog outputs. All I/O information from these drives are accessible by the EtherCAT master.  This capability can eliminate the need for separate EtherCAT I/O devices.  The configuration of the EDD-3701x is done using the Galil’s GDK software.  Simply connect to a PC via EDD-3701x’s USB port, follow the GDK configuration tool process, and start moving motors.  The EDD-3701x also comes with a setup guide to get the user from taking the EDD out of the box to moving motors in a manner of minutes.

The EDD-3701x has a small form factor with just 3.9”x5.0”x1.5”. It can operate in either Cyclic Synchronous Position mode (CSP) or Cyclic Synchronous Torque mode (CST). It also accepts quadrature encoder feedback up to 15 MHz.