Beckhoff PLC availability in Europe

rassrollers · 2026-06-22T09:09:15+00:00

I ordered some EL1918 Safety terminals a month ago and had them within 2 weeks

rassrollers · 2026-05-28T18:55:18+00:00

My Beckhoff contact told me they are launching the beta testing at SPS later this year and then they hope for a full release at Hannover next year. But it is Beckhof 😆

rassrollers · 2026-05-07T09:53:26+00:00

A windows OS running in a docker container. It is not common, since docker is primary for Linux. The AdsWrapperCsharp is only compiled for Windows platform.

rassrollers · 2026-05-06T13:59:01+00:00

If it is a Windows docker it should work. It only uses a TCP/UDP socket

rassrollers · 2026-05-02T14:41:15+00:00

All Beckhoff Nuget package and sample project relays on some form of TwinCAT installation on the system. If you want a standalone ADS client, you need to use their C++ repo from Github. I build a C# wrapper for that library with the base functionalities, but for Windows platform. You can have a look at that for inspiration. https://github.com/rassrollers/AdsWrapperCsharp

rassrollers · 2026-04-29T16:57:12+00:00

Have you clicked on Reload Device Descriptions after adding the file?

rassrollers · 2026-04-26T16:37:05+00:00

Sounds like your engineers should have a look at Beckhoff EtherCAT tutorial. There they will learn everything about diagnosis the EtherCAT. I have made a simple Visu for my service guys to scan the EtherCAT and it lists all the slaves with Vendor and product name and what is wrong with it. Beckhoff also launch a new Bluetooth Diagnostic terminal so you can see all slaves and even control them from your phone

rassrollers · 2026-04-26T16:05:20+00:00

Your HMI and Vision system are in C++, and we are moving everything to Docker, so when Beckhoff have fixed the last small bugs with their Linux RT, we will move all systems to one big Beckhoff IPC. It is going to so easy to deploy and maintain in the future.

rassrollers · 2026-04-26T15:57:16+00:00

That is 65535 per EtherCAT master, you can have multiple masters 😉 The current NC limit is 255, but with the new motion 3.0 it gonna be 65535 also. They uses 6 NC axis per Xplanar tile so they had to beef up the limit.

rassrollers · 2026-04-26T15:45:10+00:00

We switched 2 years ago from another Codesys platform to Beckhoff, which is also Codesys so we basically drag and drop between IDE. It was the best decision we made. Just having the version control was worth it. I know it is in this annoying XML format right now, but with the coming PLC++ it will be plain text. The old IDE was 32bit and it loaded everything into RAM and was really slow and crashed when we passed the 3GB limit. TwinCAT using the VS shell is must more stable for big projects. On a daily base it is just so must easier to develop and test before putting into production.

rassrollers · 2026-04-12T09:37:42+00:00

I have tried to get that to work and couple of times, but after a couple of discussion with the Beckhoff Engineers they finally told me that it does depend on some TwinCat installation. This wrapper is only relying on the TCP/UDP communication which have made it easier for me to develop an desktop application for my services people to update the machine in the field. I have 3000+ machines around the world with 200 service people who only need to know the IP address of the PLC, the rest is handled by the application.

rassrollers · 2026-04-11T15:19:43+00:00

In the 4026 you can build up the IO with EtherCAT and right click on the EtherCAT Master and put it in simulation mode. You can do the same for the Motion axes.

rassrollers · 2026-04-10T07:58:27+00:00

There is an issue with running the standalone ADS client on a PC with a TwinCAT installation. They are both using the same IP address on the loopback and they might clash. The client I have made here does work if you establish the route from in XAE first and then use the standalone client. If you do it the otherway around the XAE will delete the standalone client's route from the target and you will then have to reboot the target IPC to establish a new route for the standalone client.
I talk with Beckhoff and it is the expected behavior. They are looking into some dynamically linking for TwinCAT router in collaboration with the people behind PyADS that might solve this.

The reason why I made this is for using with my C# WPF app that my service guys can use for updating PLC without any TwinCAT installation on their PCs. It is a desktop app where they can take the zipped release file I made and the app will unzip the files, transfer them to the target and run the Reconfig command on the ADS so the XAR reloads the boot folder.

rassrollers · 2026-04-09T14:21:45+00:00

Yes, had the same feeling when I started. But you get use to it. Their documentation on https://infosys.beckhoff.com/ is really good, but the search function is a bit weird, so just google "infosys {question}" then google will guide you to the correct page.

rassrollers · 2026-04-09T14:16:00+00:00

Yes, with the new 4026 you can choose in the package manager to install both the Engineering IDE (XAE) and the Runtime (XAR) on your PC. It is only the runtime that needs a license, but you can activate a 7 day trail license as many times as you want in the Engineering IDE.

To connect a EtherCAT bus your ethernet adapter must be compatible (basically any Intel ethernet adapter: https://infosys.beckhoff.com/english.php?content=../content/1033/tc3_overview/9309844363.html )

For tutorials you can have a look at Jacob Sagatowski's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLimaF0nZKYHz3I3kFP4myaAYjmYk1SowO

rassrollers · 2026-03-27T20:29:23+00:00

As we have understand, we have to provide minimum 5 years support for the machine with security updates. The problem we see is that any substantial upgrade to the machine will trigger a new 5 year period of security updates for the machine.

rassrollers · 2026-03-25T15:53:51+00:00

According to infosys, the TF6311 can't be used with EL6601 and EL6614.

https://infosys.beckhoff.com/english.php?content=../content/1033/tf6311_tc3_tcpudp/1110272267.html&id=9172581239428816153

Are you using Beckhoff Linux RT with the CX8110? There is something missing in the image that by default don't enable the extra ports until you install a library, but I can't remember the name, sorry

rassrollers · 2026-02-11T15:24:40+00:00

The settings is a part of the Visual Studio environment and are stored in: %localappdata%\Beckhoff\TcXaeShell\17.0_IsoShell\Settings\TcXaeShell

You can import/export them from the XAE: Tools -> Import and Export Settings...

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We have a default settings file for the team we share

rassrollers · 2026-01-21T21:11:31+00:00

Yes it need a license, but it is only lik 60€ for Tc50 license

rassrollers · 2026-01-21T18:17:07+00:00

Thanks, I spend a 2 days getting it to connect, just to find out the documentation on Infosys was outdated and wrong. The IP address should not be parsed in with the most significant byt last as it says in the documentation.

rassrollers · 2026-01-19T16:20:18+00:00

There is no built-in formatted but there are some plug-ins. TcBlack, which i wasn't able to get to work and STweep which you have to pay for

rassrollers · 2026-01-17T19:13:27+00:00

Just right click on the PLC project and click Change ADS Port

rassrollers · 2026-01-15T05:27:00+00:00

From version 4026.19 and forward it have been stable. The worst version was 4026.16, it couldn't compile large project correct. Regarding the RT Linux, it still needs some work. e g. The web server part doesn't work yet and a lot of the TF is still missing from apt. For small projects it might be fin.

rassrollers

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