Obtaining Beckhoff Network Hardware for Self Training

Hello Friends,

I'm starting a new job soon, towards the end of September, that will be using all Beckhoff equipment.

I have programming experience with Beckhoff but not as much hands on experience on the hardware side. The company I will work for uses ProfiNET, ProfiSAFE, Ethercat, and IO-Link for their industrial networks.

Checking on eBay and Radwell PLC, the pricing of used hardware for practice seems way out of budget. Hardware such as ProfiNET master, IO-Link master, and Ethercat couplers.

It's great that with Beckhoff I can use my laptop as the IPC/PLC, but it does me no good if the network hardware is out of budget.

Does anyone have some advice for where I could source these network modules at a low price, or even if someone could borrow them to me for a deposit or other agreement. I'm in Illinois and I will be working in Forth Worth.

I would suggest contacting the Beckhoff Chicago area office (they are in Lemont) and asking for advice. They might be able to get you loaners and what not.

What kind of networks do you plan on building with those (at your own expense)? Have you checked ethercat simulation? That can be used to simulate field devices (needs two ethercat able nics though).

https://www.beckhoff.com/en-en/products/automation/twincat/te1xxx-twincat-3-engineering/te1111.html

I figured today on contacting Beckhoff to see if they have any loaner trainers. I also researched if there are any simulators and did find the Ethercat SIM package.

There is also another simulator package that you can simulate wired inputs/outputs if you have an Allen Bradley working PLC, Siemens, or Beckhoff. I'm still trying to find that one I've seen on YouTube a few years ago.

Preferably not at my expense, but if I have to pay no more than 500 dollars for a Beckhoff Profinet Master, Ethercat slave, ProfiSAFE, and IO Link master then I am content with purchasing out of pocket for practice.

I believe there are also simulators for ProfiNET slaves and I can use the Beckhoff real time driver with ProfiNET protocol from my laptop. One thing I need to figure out is how many protocols can I run from one ethernet port on my laptop? Ethercat AND ProfiNET simultaneously, or is a dedicated NIC needed for each industrial network?

Another possibility I think is just to practice with one protocol at a time on the NIC, and then change to another protocol. So the hardware I would need is a cheap ethercat slave, cheap profinet and profiSAFE slave, and a cheap IO Link master if possible. Any suggestions on this hardware under 500 dollars?

PLCstarter1884 said:

One thing I need to figure out is how many protocols can I run from one ethernet port on my laptop? Ethercat AND ProfiNET simultaneously, or is a dedicated NIC needed for each industrial network?

Click to expand...

You will certainly need a dedicated NIC for EtherCAT and it must be an Intel chip-based. It is better to have a separate NIC for Profinet; another solution would be to embed Profinet traffic into EtherCAT and use EL6631 Profinet RT Controller terminal.

You mentioned that the company uses ProfiSAFE; I wonder why not TwinSAFE since it is Beckhoff and EtherCAT anyway? Beckhoff does have a ProfiSAFE controller terminal but wouldn't that mean embedding Profinet traffic into EtherCAT anyway?