A question about EtherCat

Hello to all,
I wonder how many of you have used EtherCat. I have heard for EtherCat recently and if I understood correctly it is Ethernet based system which incorporates fieldbus. I don't know if it is meant to replace industrial Etrhernet and would like to read your opinions. I have read that EtherCat is optimized for high speed transfers of data. I would like to know more about comparing industrial Ethernet and EtherCat. If someone has more informations, please share with us.
Thank you very much

In the link you can find a IMM manufacture, they compare profibus and ethercat.

http://www.automation.siemens.com/download/internet/cache/3/1408254/pub/en/14_husky.pdf

I've never used ethercat but one thing I know about ethercat is that multiple devices can receive the same packet of information, same IP address. Typically a fieldbus device only produces or consumes from one to just a few words of information. This wastes a huge amount of bandwidth because a complete data packet full of unused words is still transmitted. Ethercat packs the packet full of information for lots of devices, effecitvely increasing the bandwith by an order of magnitude.

I believe Ethercat holds the blue ribbon of being the fastest fieldbus out there at the moment. But new Ethernet based industrial fieldbusses are popping up at an alarming rate. Anyone ever heard of "VARAN" ?
On www.sps-forum.de there are several people that rave about EtherCat. If you know german I recommend you to go there and search for "Ethercat".

We are in the early stages of upgrading our press control system, removing Interbus and replaceing it with EtherCAT. No experience yet. This is an oem job. They spec'd EtherCAT as their choice for upgrade. I'm also curious to hear from any others who have experiences to share.

Search the forum for "Ethercat", you see a few previous discussions includeing mine, asking the same question...

http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=26144

Yet another Ethernet Protocol.

JesperMP said:

I believe Ethercat holds the blue ribbon of being the fastest fieldbus out there at the moment. But new Ethernet based industrial fieldbusses are popping up at an alarming rate.

Click to expand...

There are too many. Every one thinks they can do it better than the next guy.

Anyone ever heard of "VARAN" ?

Click to expand...

Yes, and many others. The market is too fragmented.

On www.sps-forum.de there are several people that rave about EtherCat. If you know german I recommend you to go there and search for "Ethercat".

Click to expand...

You don't need to speak German but it helps when the babelfish translator gives up because the grammar and spelling is poor. Every once in a while I lurk.
They BS on that forum more than the people do on this one.

Hmm, so it's only ethernet based but still fieldbus communication system. So real comparision should be between ethercat and profibus then, not between industrial ethernet and ethercat.
I wonder, since it is pretty much new technology, how much one must wait to see if choosing EtherCat really pays off?

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Don't you need to compare it with Profinet instead of Profibus ?