AlfredoQuintero
Lifetime Supporting Member
Hello Beckhoff experts. I want your opinion on whether the hack I explain below is possible or whether I should forget about it.
Our Beckoff PLC is CX5120-0125, which uses CFast card media. Unfortunately we purchased the PLC with only 8Gbyte. I have not installed anything on this PC other than the TwinCAT runtime software, but the 8Gb is almost full after having updated the TwinCAT runtime software and not even the available Windows 7 embedded patches can be installed due to lack of memory. I would like to have more space to update the OS, the TwinCAT and add Wireshark (as we use this for firmware development), so I contacted Beckhoff Japan and they quoted be the C9900-H372 8 GB USB stick with Beckhoff Service Tool (BST) and CX2900-0038 40 GB CFast card for a total of almost the equivalent of US$ 600.
On the other hand we have a SATA duplicator device and one CFast-SATA adapter which costs around US 18. So I only need another one of these and an COTS CFast card, and a 64 Gb costs around US$ 90. I can save about US$ 500 if I buy the CFast card and duplicate it with the CFast-SATA adapters, but the thing is, how is the TwinCAT license validated? Does it take the signature based on the computer MAC addresses? Or is the signature based on the media, in which case my hack would not work. Will be grateful for comments.
Our Beckoff PLC is CX5120-0125, which uses CFast card media. Unfortunately we purchased the PLC with only 8Gbyte. I have not installed anything on this PC other than the TwinCAT runtime software, but the 8Gb is almost full after having updated the TwinCAT runtime software and not even the available Windows 7 embedded patches can be installed due to lack of memory. I would like to have more space to update the OS, the TwinCAT and add Wireshark (as we use this for firmware development), so I contacted Beckhoff Japan and they quoted be the C9900-H372 8 GB USB stick with Beckhoff Service Tool (BST) and CX2900-0038 40 GB CFast card for a total of almost the equivalent of US$ 600.
On the other hand we have a SATA duplicator device and one CFast-SATA adapter which costs around US 18. So I only need another one of these and an COTS CFast card, and a 64 Gb costs around US$ 90. I can save about US$ 500 if I buy the CFast card and duplicate it with the CFast-SATA adapters, but the thing is, how is the TwinCAT license validated? Does it take the signature based on the computer MAC addresses? Or is the signature based on the media, in which case my hack would not work. Will be grateful for comments.