It’s our pleasure to introduce the latest update of KPA EtherCAT Master 2 Stack for QNX 8.0 x64 – version 2.7.1503.0 is now available!
The newest release, succeeding the version 2.5.28912.0, brings the following improvements:
- QNX 8.0 support
From now on Master stack supports QNX 8.0 – the latest version of QNX. - KPA Master Redundancy software solution
From now on MDK2 for generic QNX 8.0 x64 supports software solution for KPA Master Redundancy.
This solution does not require some specific HW module and only a regular Ethernet switch is used for connection Master and the bus. To switch from Secondary to Primary mode the software fast switch is used.
The following changes were made:- Added the samples 55_MasterRedundancy and 56_DynamicStringDemo demonstrating how to work with the Master Redundancy feature.
- Renamed the INI parameter master.secondary.timeoutbase to master.secondary.timeout.
- Removed the INI parameter master.secondary.timeoutfactor and related usage in source.
- Reviewed the description of KPA Master Redundancy in MDK Manual (updated the chapter Master Redundancy, added error codes description in Troubleshooting).
- Built-in trial license
From now on, a trial license is included by default in KPA MRT2 packages to simplify the first launch of KPA products. - Ports open delay setting
From now on it is possible to set ports open delay via Master INI file. A new parameter topology.ports.open.delay.ms has been added to INI file. With this parameter you can set waiting time after which the command to open ports is sent when the port state changes. - Manual closed ports
To maintain the bus integrity, Master stack now supports the manual close mode for slave ports. To handle slave ports switching, the INI parameter topology.ports.manual.handling has been added. -
Multimaster improvements
The following enchancements have been implemented to improve the Multimaster feature:- From now on the only configurations specified in Master INI file are accepted as valid Master configurations. If the configuration that is used to create a Master instance is not specified in the Masters parameter, new error code will be returned – 0X804A. Master instances with the same configuration names in INI file are not allowed to be created. A new error code – 0X804B, is added for that case.
- Thread parameters values in INI file inherit values from the default KPAMaster configuration, if thread parameters are not set in current configuration.
- Automatic DC slaves calculation
Added automatic calculation of number DC slaves to be processed simultaneously, by loaded ENI file. - DC offset calculation
DC offset calculation in chunks has been added. Limit of the number of DC slaves to be processed simultaneously is set with a new dc.slave.processing.count INI parameter. - Mailbox size verification
Added mailbox default read size. Its value equals a value of a new mailbox.defaultreadsize INI parameter. The size of mailbox header, 6 bytes, is used as a default value of this parameter. - Detection of missed PI data update
Updated API Help with guidance on how to verify the timeliness of data delivery from application to Master. - Process Image Client invalidation
Added change of the Process Image (PI) Client status to invalid on ENI reload in Master core.
And also, added callback PARAM_PI_INVALIDATED_NOTIFICATION to PI Processor and PI Client Processor to notify user about PI Processor (or PI Client) going into invalid state after ENI reloading. Those invalid processors will be destroyed by application.
To show usage of new callback we provide a new sample 54_InvalidProcessImage. - Process Image Client overflow
Added callbacks PARAM_PI_ON_OVERFLOW and PARAM_PICLIENT_ON_OVERFLOW to Process Image (PI) Processor and PI Client Processor to notify user about PI Processor (or PI Client) overflow (read and write). To show usage of callbacks on PI Processor read and write overflow we provide a new sample 53_ProcessImageOverflow. - Package names update
Master stack package names (MDK, MRT, MIP) have been updated. The toolchain settings were added to package names. - DC description in API Help
The description of the Distributed Clock (DC) functionality has been added to API Help. It includes the common notes, steps of the DC initialization procedure, slave synchronization and external synchronization. You can find the corresponding page in the Master features section.
