With TwinSAFE, Beckhoff offers an extensive portfolio of software and hardware components for functional safety. This offering is continuously expanded and further developed, as evidenced by the TwinCAT Safety PLC with numerous new safety I/Os as well as the EL6910 function.
The TwinSAFE EtherCAT Terminal EL1957 is a digital input/output terminal for sensors with potential-free contacts at 24 V DC. It has eight fail-safe inputs and four fail-safe outputs (up to 2 A). The EL1957 also integrates the programmable TwinSAFE logic, allowing safety applications to be implemented directly in the terminal.
The TwinSAFE terminal allows users to design safety applications cost-effectively and with fine granularity, since a complete safety loop solution based on local inputs and outputs can be implemented with just one safety component. Further innovations include the EL2962 TwinSAFE EtherCAT terminal with two safety relay contacts and a safe analog input (initially 4-20 mA), which are available in the two SIL3-capable variants EL3952 and ELX3952. In addition, the TwinSAFE modules EJ6910, EJ1957 and EJ1918 are now also available in the -0001 version without a housing, allowing integration into any device.
The functionality of the dedicated EL6910 TwinSAFE logic has also been transferred to the industrial PC, which means that the TwinCAT Safety PLC becomes the framework for the EL6910 runtime. The solution maintains binary compatibility with the hardware variants, so that the same tools can be used (TE9000 for engineering, TwinSAFE Loader/User for TwinCAT 3-independent interaction).
In contrast to the hardware solution, here faster response times and higher quantities are achieved due to the use of modern processor architectures: 4096 instead of 512 FBs, 1024 TwinSAFE groups instead of 128, 2014 TwinSAFE connections instead of 212, and cycle times of 8 μs from 1 ms to 7 ms instead of 15 ms.