Product Description:

The EL6002-0000 terminal is produced by Beckhoff within the EL EtherCAT Terminals series. Designed as a compact serial interface module, it converts two independent RS232 data streams to EtherCAT so that legacy drives, barcode scanners, and operator panels can be polled from the controller without separate gateways. In industrial automation, this function allows PLCs to collect diagnostic or setpoint data from peripheral equipment while keeping deterministic cycle times on the real-time fieldbus. Occupying only 12 mm of rail width, the device supports high-density I/O configurations inside control cabinets.

It exposes 2 x RS232 interfaces, each terminated on a 2 x DE9 D-sub, 9-pin connector at the front edge. Communication occurs in full duplex mode, so transmit and receive lines remain independent, and bit rates range from 300 baud to 115200 baud; the default is 9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, and one stop bit. For flow control, the terminal reserves 864 B RX, 128 B TX per channel, allowing the PLC to service incoming frames on the next EtherCAT cycle without overrun. Two channels share a single slot, yielding flexible point-to-point links while retaining deterministic bus timing.

The terminal snaps onto a 35 mm DIN rail and draws logic and sensor power via the E-bus, so no additional wiring is needed apart from the signal leads routed to the D-sub jacks. A molded polycarbonate housing encloses the electronics and, together with the open top ventilation slots, supports the unit’s stated IP20 ingress rating for use in enclosed control panels. Serial cabling of up to 15 m can be used when shielded conductors are maintained, while the process image mapping supplies one control and status word plus twenty-two user bytes to each channel, enabling direct integration with TwinCAT function blocks.