Packet Errors

This is a useful tool for viewing packet errors for each EtherCAT port (there are four) for every EtherCAT node.

Use this in the extremely rare case that EtherCAT network performance is degraded, specifically in the case of EMI or bad cabling.

Top Bar

• Enable Toggle Button to start reading packet error counters.

  • This uses the SDO channel for each node so it is not recommended to run this while your application is using calls to ServiceChannelRead/Write.

• Broom/Clear button will reset the counters to zero, as well as the loop counter located in the bottom right corner.

Data Table

Displays All Available Network Nodes & Ports

• Node represents the name of each EtherCAT node.

• Index is the zero-based index of the node on the network.

• Port # - each EtherCAT node has four ports. Most nodes will only use Port 0 and Port 1, which correspond to the IN port and the OUT port. Where:

  • frame = count of frames where bit sequence was corrupted.

  • phy = count of physical layer errors corresponding to individual invalid bytes which can occur within and outside of frames.

Bottom Bar

Displays Errors (if any) & Counter

• The counter value in the bottom right corner shows how many times the counters have been updated.

• Each update requires several SDO reads (ServiceChannelRead(...)) and might interfere with your application if you are polling SDO values.