Product Description:

Beckhoff’s FC2002.4 is an interface card in the FC Lightbus Cards series that links a host PC to Lightbus fiber-optic rings for real-time control tasks. The card resides in a 32-bit Plug & Play PCI slot and draws its logic power from the PCI bus, allowing integration into standard industrial PCs without external cabling. By translating the Lightbus protocol into shared dual-port RAM, the board provides deterministic access to distributed sensors and actuators used in automated production lines.

It supports two Lightbus channels, and each channel can handle 8 communication paths while sustaining a transfer rate of 2.5 Mbit/s. The onboard DPRAM allocates 4 kB of address space per channel, mirrored into the host memory map so the CPU can read or write process data with very little overhead. For transient data, every ring holds 512 kB of RAM, giving ample buffering during transactions. Two hardware IRQ lines can be assigned for fast event signaling, and three diagnostic LEDs on each channel report optical link status, data activity, and error conditions. User data are exchanged in a 32-bit width that aligns with the PCI bus, and the underlying Lightbus medium is optical fiber, which helps reduce electrical interference and supports long-distance cabinet-to-cabinet wiring.

Each optical ring also provides 256 kB of flash for user parameter retention. Up to 255 devices may be addressed on a single channel, allowing expansion to 65,280 digital or analog I/O points without segmenting the network. The card operates from the backplane’s 5 V supply, so no auxiliary power connector is required. Typical cyclic user data can be updated within 25 µs, ensuring that motion controllers or high-speed interlocks receive timely feedback. Because the PCI interface is 32-bit Plug & Play, resources are configured automatically at boot, and the dual IRQ scheme lets the operating system separate time-critical Lightbus traffic from background diagnostics.