New generation of machine-level block I/O devices

Siemens has launched a new gen­er­a­tion of machine-lev­el block I/O devices in the form of the Simat­ic ET 200eco PN. The new I/O fam­i­ly with IP65/67 degree of pro­tec­tion includes five dig­i­tal I/O devices as well as an IO-Link mas­ter device and offers users a whole range of new func­tions for mod­ern machine con­cepts and require­ments. In their new indus­tri­al met­al enclo­sure, the devices are reli­ably pro­tect­ed from UV radi­a­tion and harm­ful sub­stances even under adverse envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions, mak­ing it pos­si­ble to use the devices out­side of fac­to­ry build­ings. The devices are sup­plied with pow­er via an L‑coded plug, result­ing in a con­sid­er­ably high­er cur­rent-car­ry­ing capac­i­ty. In turn, this enables longer cable routes in the field, and the sup­ply and con­nec­tion of more ener­gy-inten­sive com­po­nents (such as valve ter­mi­nals) with­out the need for more sup­ply cables.

The new I/O devices fea­ture indi­vid­u­al­ly con­fig­urable M12 sock­ets and sup­port S2 redun­dan­cy, mak­ing them suit­able for use in redun­dant sys­tems such as the high-avail­abil­i­ty Simat­ic S7-1500R/H sys­tems, for exam­ple in tun­nel appli­ca­tions. Thanks to the inter­nal Mod­u­lar Shared Input (MSI) and Mod­u­lar Shared Out­put (MSO), the user has simul­ta­ne­ous and inde­pen­dent read access to the cur­rent switch­ing state of mod­ule inputs and out­puts from mul­ti­ple con­trollers, with­out the need for addi­tion­al pro­gram­ming over­head. This enhances machine and plant transparency.

The shared device func­tion means that the I/O device chan­nels can be split between two IO con­trollers. This allows the cre­ation of flex­i­ble automa­tion concepts.