EtherCAT SDK is a complete toolset for developing and maintaining EtherCAT slaves. It includes the following components:
Together with SOES EtherCAT Slave Stack the developer has an all-in-one tool for developing EtherCAT slaves in an efficient way, which makes it easy to support and maintain them throughout their life cycle.
EtherCAT SDK is available in the following two different packages:
The EtherCAT SDK works on GNU/Linux operating systems with GTK and on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Only 64-bit JVMs are supported.
The following software must be installed on a computer in order to run EtherCAT SDK:
A Java Virtual Machine (JVM) version 8 or newer.
A JVM can be downloaded from here.
EtherCAT Explorer requires CAP_NET_RAW capability on Linux. This capability lets the JVM send and receive EtherCAT packets. You can set this on your java executable by running:
EtherCAT Explorer will warn if it was not able to open the network adapter with the required capability. The console will contain instructions on how to set the capability on the currently used java executable:
To use EtherCAT SDK as a plug-in in an existing Eclipse installation, download and install it like an ordinary Eclipse plug-in.
Open Help > Install new Software..., enter the rt-labs download site hosting the plug-in:
A license is required for the application to work. See section EtherCAT SDK License for instructions on how to obtain and install the license.
Download the stand-alone EtherCAT SDK application from rt-labs download site in one of the following versions:
Save the downloaded EtherCAT SDK zip file in a folder, unzip it and run the executable file (for example ethercat-sdk.exe
) to start the application.
A license is required for the application to work. See section EtherCAT SDK License for instructions on how to obtain and install the license.
A license is required to be able to generate slave code from EtherCAT Slave Editor and to connect to an EtherCAT network with EtherCAT Explorer. A time limited evaluation license can be obtained freely. A commercial license can be purchased from rt-labs.
A license file must be acquired and imported into the application license store. Use the Licenses** preferences page to request a license file for an existing license, or to request a new evaluation license. This page is found at Windows > Preferences > Licenses.
There are two actions that can be performed on this page:
This release contains minor adjustments of the software.
This is the first official release of the software.