The EtherCAT Plug Fests take place at venues all over the world and continue to enjoy great popularity within the industrial Ethernet community. This trend continues with the 21st event, the 2016 Spring European EtherCAT Plug Fest, which was recently organized and conducted by the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG). An ETG member company typically acts as a host to those events, and this time it was Infineon Technologies AG who invited the participants to their facilities in Neubiberg, Germany. 
EtherCAT Plug Fests focus on the testing of EtherCAT master and slave devices. The two-day events enable the attending manufacturers to check the interoperability of their products still in development. At the most recent Plug Fest in Neubiberg, more than 60 participants from 9 countries tested over 50 devices. Besides providers of controllers, drives, sensors and I/Os, manufacturers of EtherCAT Slave Controllers (ESC) and Safety over EtherCAT (FSoE) devices also attended.
The ETG Plug Fest is an ideal opportunity for EtherCAT device developers to comprehensively test their products for interoperability under real application conditions before launch, as well as to exchange knowledge with other developers and EtherCAT experts. The value found in this level of collaboration, together with the open atmosphere at Plug Fests, make the events very worthwhile for participants. At the Plug Fest in Neubiberg, one of the attending development engineers summed up the two days: “Every year I gain new insights about EtherCAT technology and continue the enhancement of my company’s products.”
EtherCAT
www.ethercat.org
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