EtherCAT-enabled power supplies provide transparent mains and system monitoring

The three existing PS power supply series from Beckhoff have been expanded to include new devices with a built-in EtherCAT interface within the PS2000 series. They make it easy to gather additional measurement and device data for comprehensive system monitoring, which can be used to increase availability and reduce downtime. As a result, the power supplies combine compact design and high performance with predictive maintenance functionality for the first time.

These new PS2000 power supplies combine high-performance power supply units from Beckhoff with the ultra-fast EtherCAT communication standard. This allows extensive measurement data and internal device data to be processed directly by the control system, establishes remote access to power supplies, and provides advanced monitoring features for the DC output range (for system monitoring) or the AC input range (for mains monitoring).

In the case of system monitoring, important operating parameters such as output current and voltage are transmitted in real time and continuously updated. This enables transparent data insights and, based on this, automated detection of additional consumers subsequently added to the system. In addition, voltage, current and temperature data can be added to the monitoring scope – for example, to monitor heat generation in the device and collect basic plant data such as the number of switch-on operations or operating hours. In single-phase network monitoring, fluctuations such as undervoltages and overvoltages are detected on the basis of the input voltage values. A special feature is the detection of input transients, which are energy-rich high voltage peaks in the mains.

Status information, error messages and warnings are also available directly in the control platform via EtherCAT, providing the best possible conditions for analyzing the operating status of a plant and detecting any errors at an early stage. Warning thresholds that can be set in the control system (to indicate overcurrent, for example) allow the signaling conditions to be defined specifically for the application at hand and the power supplies to be adapted to the individual conditions. Remote access via EtherCAT also makes it possible to specifically shut down sections of a plant in the event of machine downtime or a fault.

In the 24 V DC range, the 1-phase power supplies are available as both 10 A and 20 A variants with an output power of 240 and 480 W respectively. A 10 A variant with 480 W is available for the 48 V range. An optimized electronics layout achieves high efficiency of more than 96%. In addition to inrush current limitation and active harmonic correction (PFC), the power supplies offer a wide-range input suitable for worldwide use on the input side.