Increasing fieldbus versatility and cutting costs
The introduction of a new range of Economy Plus bus couplers, and a new Bus Terminal Extension module, means Beckhoff protocol-independent fieldbus is more versatile and cost-effective
In the Beckhoff system, bus couplers provide the link between the controller and I/O terminals, which can be supplied in versions to suit virtually every digital and analogue requirement.
The new Economy Plus bus couplers are optimised for industrial applications, where they offer substantial cost savings compared with previously available products, and they are available to suit most popular fieldbus protocols, including Profibus DP, Interbus, DeviceNet and Beckhoff's own high-performance fibre-optic based Lightbus.
Each Economy Plus bus coupler can directly support up to 64 I/O terminals, each with two or four I/O channels.
By using the new Bus Terminal Extension module, however, this capacity is easily and economically expanded to 255 I/O modules.
This means that a single, inexpensive bus coupler can support up to 1020 digital I/O and, depending on the fieldbus protocol in use, up to 256 analogue I/O.
Bus Terminal Extension modules also allow the I/O terminals associated with a single bus coupler to be divided into a maximum of 31 separate physical groups, with the groups located up to 5 metres apart.
Since the connections between the groups are made with readily available low-cost Ethernet cable and RJ45 connectors, such an arrangement, in many applications, offers an attractive and very economical method of providing distributed I/O over distances of up to 155 metres.
To ensure easy application programming, the operation of the Bus Terminal Extension modules is completely transparent to the user.
Irrespective of their physical location, all I/O terminals connected to a particular bus coupler are treated as a single unit for addressing purposes.
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