STW expands its ESX family of mobile control units

Photo by Sensor-Technik Wiedemann GmbH

Sensor-Technik Wiedemann (STW) presents a new member of its ESX family of mobile control units. Until now, the focus has been placed on modular extendibility; this time the cost optimisation has been the top priority. Based on analyses of the mobile machine market, the ESX-3CM was developed to cater for a large number of applications with a predefined configuration. The ESX-3CM, which, like the other members of the ESX family, is freely programmable, is supported by the comprehensive STW-Toolchain.

Developed and manufactured for use in rugged conditions, the ESX-3CM builds on the advantages of the ESX 32 bit control unit family to address typical requirements of mobile machines in a standard configuration. With a total of 56 analogue and digital inputs and outputs, the freely-programmable ESX-3CM is designed as the central control unit for machine automation. The ESX-3CM retains the flexibility of the ESX family through 20 multi-functional inputs, the functionality of which can be adjusted via software. Here it is possible to register current, voltage, frequencies or digital switching conditions (events) at the input. For systems which require a high switching capacity, a total of three power output groups are available with four or eight outputs. Every group can provide up to 15 A in total. Actuators with a higher power requirement can also be actuated through parallel switching of several outputs within a group. The ESX-3CM has new communication capabilities: In addition to the RS232 interface, and the four CAN connections, an optional Ethernet interface with a dedicated connector is available. One CAN bus features a wake-up function and another can be used as an RS485 interface.

Like the ESX-3XL and the ESX-3XM, the ESX-3CM is based on a 32bit TriCore processor, which in the 3CM case is clocked with 300 MHz. Optionally, a separate System Supervisor with programmable Watchdog is available. For the ESX-3CM, the tried and tested development environments for C and CODESYS are available. The familiar STW analysis, configuration and update tool KEFEX is fully supported.

Naturally, the ESX-3CM fulfils the standards for conformity according to. CE and E1 as well as the standards for the passenger vehicle, agricultural and construction machine industries. For 2016, a further version is planned for safety applications in accordance with PLd (DIN EN ISO13489-1 2008-12) or SIL 2 (IEC 61508 Edition 2.0 2010-04).

For more information, please visit https://www.sensor-technik.de.

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