Published February 28, 2020 © GPL3+

5 MCU Boards Communicating with Each Other Through EtherCAT

Light sensor shield signals 4 other Arduino shields to change accordingly through an EtherCAT Arduino Shield by Esmacat & an EtherCAT master

IntermediateProtip2 hours1,528

Things used in this project

Hardware components

EtherCAT Arduino Shield by Esmacat (EASE)

24V PoE Injector

DFPlayer - A Mini MP3 Player For Arduino

RGB LCD Shield Kit, 16x2 Character Display

Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino v2 Kit - v2.3

LED Strip, NeoPixel Digital RGB

STM32 X-NUCLEO-6180XA1

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Esmacat Master Software

EtherCAT Arduino Shield by Esmacat Arduino and Mbed Library

Story

5 MCU boards communicating with each other

This demo showcases a larger application of our EtherCAT Arduino Shield by Esmacat (EASE). This demo uses 5 different MCU boards (two Arduino Unos, two STM Nucleo boards, and one Arduino Uno clone) to showcase EASE's compatibility as well as expandability.

The light sensor shield signals the LED strip, MP3 player module, motor shield, and LCD shield to change according to the ambient light. Each module is connected to an EASE board and one of the MCU boards mentioned above.

EASE is perfect for users who want to learn more about EtherCAT as an educational tool, users who want to expand their projects using multiple Arduino boards, Arduino-like boards, and Arduino shields, and users who want a simple versatile EtherCAT slave to interface with their existing EtherCAT based projects!

EASE is available for sale on our Crowd Supply campaign page. https://www.crowdsupply.com/harmonic-bionics/ease

Check out our Hackster.io page for other EASE tutorials/demos. https://www.hackster.io/esmacat

Check out our Esmacat EtherCAT products on our website. https://www.esmacat.com/