Beckhoff Automation ep1258-0001

The EP1258-0001 EtherCAT Box with digital inputs acquires the fast binary control signals from the process level and transmits them, in an electrically isolated form, to the controller. The signals are furnished with a timestamp that identifies the time of the last edge change with a resolution of 1 ns. This technology enables signals to be traced exactly over time and synchronized with the distributed clocks across the system. With this technology, machine-wide parallel hardware wiring of digital inputs or encoder signals for synchronization purposes is often no longer required. In this way, the EP1258 enables responses with equidistant time intervals, largely independent of the bus cycle time.