August 22, 2006 - B&R is offering the X20 bus controller based on ETHERNET Powerlink (EPL). Real-time Ethernet cycle times of 200 µs have become reality.With the X20 bus controller, B&R continues the complete modular strategy of their I/O slices.
The most compact Ethernet bus controller available on the market has a system width of a mere 37.5 mm (1.5 inches). Made up of a base module, a supply module to supply the voltage for the entire system, and a fieldbus interface, the bus controller is an extremely flexible fieldbus connection. The entire bus-independent backplane can be preinstalled.
Pre-wiring is also possible thanks to the removable terminals. Two RJ45 interfaces make economical daisy chain wiring possible.To transfer or receive I/O data on the fieldbus, the bus controller does not need to be programmed. It works simply by configuring the fieldbus master. Because of its real-time behavior, the EPL bus controller is fully synchronized to the network and all axes connected to it.
Cross-traffic, e.g. for acquiring rotary encoder values to directly forward position data to the axes, is also possible. The CPU is not additionally loaded down during this and no delays result from the several transfer cycles.
