We need to implement devices to communicate, configure, and identify them.
Here is a checklist of what we need to implement:
- Device Port
- derive
#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy)]
- derive
- Device Struct
struct EL0000- derive
#[derive(Device)]derivesDevicetrait - derive or implement
Debugtrait - field
txpdoinstance ofEL0000TxPdo(only if the device has inputs) - field
rxpdoinstance ofEL0000RxPdo(only if the device has outputs) - field
configurationinstance ofEL0000Configuration(only if configurable) - implement
NewDevicetrait - implement
EthercatDeviceProcessingtrait- optional: override
input_post_process()method for custom input data processing - optional: override
output_pre_process()method for custom output data preparation
- optional: override
- derive
- TxPdo / RxPdo Struct
struct EL0000TxPdoand/orstruct EL0000RxPdo- derive
#[derive(Debug, Clone)] - derive
#[derive(TxPdo)]and/or#[derive(RxPdo)] - fields
- tag with
#[pdo_object_index(0x1...)]for the PDO object index - wrap PDO object in
Option
- tag with
- derive
- PDO Objects
struct EL0000PdoObjector other PDO object structs- derive
#[derive(Debug, Clone, Default, PartialEq)] - derive
#[derive(PdoObject)] - tag with
#[pdo_object(bits = 16)]for the size of the object - implement
TxPdoObjectand/orRxPdoObjecttraits
- derive
- Predefined PDO Assignment
enum EL0000PredefinedPdoAssignment(if supported)- derive
#[derive(Debug, Clone)] - implement
PredefinedPdoAssignment<EL0000TxPdo, EL0000RxPdo>
- derive
- Configuration
struct EL0000Configuration(if supported)- derive
#[derive(Debug, Clone)] - implement
Configurationtrait - field
pdo_assignmentof typeEL0000PredefinedPdoAssignment - fields for the configuration parameters
- derive
- Device Identification Adresses
These are helpful resources:
- Other implementations of similar devices
- Configuration Values: the official datasheet
- Configuration Implementation: Docs
- PDO Schema: The "Process Data" tab in the TwinCAT Software by Beckhoff
- PDO Implementation: Docs
- Identification: Attach the device and read the identity values with QiTech Control in the "Setup > EtherCAT > Devices" tab
ESI Files are not needed but could be an alternative reference, though not a very readable one.
The EthercatDeviceProcessing trait provides hooks for custom processing of input and output data that happens between the EtherCAT data exchange and the device's IO layer. Every EtherCAT device must implement this trait, even if it doesn't need custom processing.
This trait provides two optional methods:
input_post_process(): Called after the device has received input data from the EtherCAT bus, allowing transformation of the raw PDO data before it's exposed through the IO interfaces.output_pre_process(): Called before data is sent to the EtherCAT bus, allowing preparation or transformation of data from the IO interfaces before it's written to the PDO objects.
For most devices, the default implementations (which do nothing) are sufficient. You only need to override these methods when the raw PDO data requires transformation before being used by the IO layer or vice versa.
Example implementation:
impl EthercatDeviceProcessing for EL0000 {
// Optional: Only override when needed
fn input_post_process(&mut self) -> Result<(), anyhow::Error> {
// Process data after it's received from EtherCAT but before it's accessed via IO interfaces
// Example: Transform raw sensor data into engineering units
Ok(())
}
// Optional: Only override when needed
fn output_pre_process(&mut self) -> Result<(), anyhow::Error> {
// Process data before it's sent to EtherCAT
// Example: Apply limits or transforms to output values
Ok(())
}
}We need to extract the possible EtherCAT identity values matching this driver implementation and provide them as constants.
Beckhoff has the official vendor ID of 0x2. The product ID is a u32 which is unique for each device like EL0000-...., EL2003-...., EL3001-...., etc.
Hardware revisions or variants (like EL2521-0024) change the revision ID.
There can be multiple revisions for one product ID which should be supported by the driver so we annotate different revision constants with a suffix like _A, _B, _0024_A, etc.
For each revision, we need a tuple combining all three values. This makes pattern matching easier.
pub const EL0000_VENDOR_ID: u32 = 0x2;
pub const EL0000_PRODUCT_ID: u32 = 0x07d83052;
pub const EL0000_REVISION_A: u32 = 0x00110000;
pub const EL0000_IDENTITY_A: SubDeviceIdentityTuple =
(EL0000_VENDOR_ID, EL0000_PRODUCT_ID, EL0000_REVISION_A);Add the device constructor to the device_from_subdevice function in the server crate.
This function is used to create the device at runtime.
pub fn (
subdevice_identity_tuple: SubDeviceIdentityTuple,
) -> Result<Arc<RwLock<dyn Device>>, anyhow::Error> {
match subdevice_identity_tuple {
EK0000_IDENTITY_A => Ok(Arc::new(RwLock::new(EL0000::new()))),
// ...
}
}