Product Description:

The FC5102-0000 is a plug-in fieldbus interface card produced by Beckhoff and assigned to the FC Lightbus Cards series. Installed in a PC backplane slot, the card brings CANopen connectivity to PC-based control systems so the computer can participate as either a master or a slave node on the plant network. By translating TwinCAT process images into CAN frames, it links supervisory programs with decentralized drives, sensors, and I/O modules to support deterministic data exchange in machine-level automation.

Connection to the host computer is through a PCI interface, allowing direct memory mapping and low-latency access from the operating system. Two independent communication lines are provided, and these 2 channels share a common motherboard slot while addressing separate network segments. Each channel uses a galvanically decoupled design, which helps prevent ground loops between the PC and the fieldbus. Startup follows the DS302 boot-up profile, so default node states remain predictable during power-up. Cabling terminates on a 9-pin D-sub connector, and a switch on the bracket activates the integrated line termination by inserting a fixed 120-ohm resistor when the card is installed at the end of the bus.

At run time, the card complies with the DS301 V4.01 CANopen specification and communicates over the fieldbus at programmable bit rates of 10, 20, 50, 100, 125, 250, 500, 800, 1000 kbaud. Network states are indicated by 2 LEDs per channel, which makes status checks easier during operation. The TwinCAT I/O stack supplies the driver set, so application code exchanges process data through PDOs in Event, Time, Sync, or Polling modes. Host communication modes include Free, Sync, and Equidistant to align bus timing with the automation task. No NOVRAM is fitted, so configuration loads from the host at startup instead of being stored locally on the card.