Sorry, but this product is discontinued...

The netSHIELD represents an evaluation and expansion board with Arduino Uno pinout compatible connectors for development purposes.

The extension board is designed and tested for 3.3 VDC based hardware designs like the STM32 Nucleo Microcontroller evaluation boards; it has not been tested with the regular line of Arduino CPU boards.

It allows users to connect their application to all market-relevant Real-Time-Ethernet industrial networks with best-in-class real-time capabilities, like PROFINET, Ethernet/IP, EtherCAT, and others.

The extension board features a netX 52 system on a chip. The netX SoC architecture is designed from the ground up for the most demanding requirements regarding flexibility, determinism, and performance in terms of multi-protocol capability and low latency for short cycle times. The heterogeneous multicore architecture features an ARM processor core, coupled with a flexible communication subsystem (xC) for a variety of industrial applications.

The communication subsystem, i.e., the protocol stack, operates independently on the netX SoC and needs only small memory and minimal CPU resources from the host system. A protocol-specific firmware image for the netX network controller is stored in serial flash memory.

Important!

Note that loadable firmware for the netSHIELD is only for evaluation purposes and therefore is limited in its functionality: The firmware switches the bus to an offline mode after one hour of operation (module-up time). After this time, no communication to the stacks (and also AP Task) will be possible, and all commands will be rejected. Be aware that in this state, a norm-conforming behavior of the netSHIELD on the bus is not guaranteed! After the one hour evaluation time has expired, the state can only be resolved by a system initialization (SystemReset) or power cycle.

If you want to acquire fully functional firmware without this limitation, please contact the Hilscher Sales department.

Overview

• Companion board for Real Time Ethernet Industrial Protocol support
• Arduino Uno pin out compatible extension for various Microcontroller evaluation boards
• Host Microcontroller connected via SPI to the netX system on chip
• Supports the following protocols: PROFINET IRT and RT Device, EtherCAT Slave, Ethernet/IP Adapter, POWERLINK Controlled Node, Sercos III Slave, Modbus/TCP Client/Server
• Host Microcontroller example software available for the STM32F Family

Key Features

• Host Microcontroller connected via SPI to the netX system on chip
• One hardware for all industrial real time ethernet systems
• Supports PROFINET IRT and RT Device, EtherCAT Slave ,Ethernet/IP Adapter, POWERLINK Controlled Node, Sercos III Slave, Modbus/TCP Client/Server
• two RJ45 ports with real time ethernet switch for line and ring topologies
• Power supply via Mini-USB connector
• Reset button
• Bootmode jumper
• netX firmware flash programming via USB
• netX protocol stack firmware available as free download for evaluation
• Host software examples available

Development Resources

• Documentation and Software Downloads for netSHIELD...

EtherNet/IP: The Everyman’s Guide to The Most Widely Used Manufacturing Protocol

EtherNet/IP came roaring into the 21st century on the backs of DeviceNet and ControlNet, claiming world domination (almost) as the most widely used protocol in manufacturing. While it’s pervasive, EtherNet/IP isn’t necessarily standard knowledge to everyone on the factory floor. Admit it; maybe you find yourself losing sleep over questions like...

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