Press Release

LEDs are becoming increasingly popular in different markets thanks to their benefits compared with other light sources in terms of light intensity and quality, service life, current consumption, type variety and costs. In the EtherCAT I/O system the EL2595 LED terminal serves as constant current source for LED lamps between 0…700 mA. A voltage between 2...48 V is generated from the 24 V supply voltage. Dimming of the LED is affected through current reduction. For monitoring and commissioning the input and output currents and voltages are measured and read via the process data.

The EL2595 is used for controlling and synchronising high-precision LED lamps. Examples include obstacle lights on wind turbines, visual inspection systems for quality assurance or applications in which fast and precise flash or exposure processes have to be controlled with high repeat accuracy and constant light quality.

Synchronisation of obstacle lights across wind farms

The brightness of LED lamps used for obstacle lights can be controlled precisely at dusk or in misty conditions, for example. The integrated current measurement not only guarantees reliable actual value acquisition but also offers advanced diagnostic functions. Defined flashing frequencies can be synchronised across systems and wind farms. The EtherCAT distributed clock and time stamp functions enable start times (resolution 1 ns) and pulse lengths (from 1 μs) to be set. The EL2595 then automatically executes the specified pulse with the set current value.

With the EL2595 a further function is integrated into the Beckhoff I/O system. Black box control is no longer required, resulting in reduced costs and increased flexibility.