synapticon / Etherlab_EtherCAT_Master

Clone of IgH EtherCAT Master with additional Vectioneer patches.
GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
81 stars 54 forks source link

This is the README file of the IgH EtherCAT Master.

$Id$

vim: spelllang=en spell tw=78


Contents: 1) General Information 2) Requirements 3) Building and installing 4) Realtime & Tuning 5) License 6) Coding Style 7) Synapticon-specific changes


1) General Information

This is an open-source EtherCAT master implementation for Linux 2.6.

See the FEATURES file for a list of features. For more information, see http://etherlab.org/en/ethercat.

or contact

Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Florian Pose fp@igh-essen.com Ingenieurgemeinschaft IgH Heinz-Baecker-Str. 34 D-45356 Essen http://igh-essen.com


2) Requirements

1) Software requirements

Configured sources for the Linux 2.6 kernel are required to build the EtherCAT master.

2) Hardware requirements

A table of supported hardware can be found at http://etherlab.org/en/ethercat/hardware.php.


3) Building and installing

See the INSTALL file.


4) Realtime & Tuning

Realtime patches for the Linux kernel are supported, but not required. The realtime processing has to be done by the calling module (see API documentation). The EtherCAT master code itself is passive (except for the idle mode and EoE).

To avoid frame timeouts, deactivating DMA access for hard drives is recommended (hdparm -d0 ).


5) License

Copyright (C) 2006-2009 Florian Pose, Ingenieurgemeinschaft IgH

This file is part of the IgH EtherCAT Master.

The IgH EtherCAT Master is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation.

The IgH EtherCAT Master is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with the IgH EtherCAT Master; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA


The license mentioned above concerns the source code only. Using the EtherCAT technology and brand is only permitted in compliance with the industrial property and similar rights of Beckhoff Automation GmbH.


6) Coding Style

Developers shall use the coding style rules in the CodingStyle.txt file.


7) Synapticon-specific changes

This version of the IgH EtherCAT master contains changes made by Synapticon in order to support its products.

All of the changes made from the original IgH EtherCAT master will be listed in the CHANGELOG.md file.

Apart from the changes made to the base of this product, Synapticon has also added some additional instructions, as well as installation and helper scripts.