Long Startup Time with Multiple CiA402 Drives

[JinbaoXiong]

Hello,

I'm experiencing very long startup times when launching a system with multiple CiA402 drives. With 19 drives in my setup, the system takes approximately 1.5 minutes to complete initialization and reach the "Operation Enabled" state for all drives. This initialization time increases with the number of drives.

Issue Details

• From logs, I can see it takes significant time for drives to transition through all states (Switch on Disabled → Ready to Switch On → Switch On → Operation Enabled)
• Each drive seems to be initialized one after another rather than simultaneously
• Many PDO entries are printed during startup which adds overhead

System Information

• Using ethercat_driver_ros2
• 19 drives with vendor_id: 0x9a, product_code: 0x30924
• ROS 2（ROS Humble）running on Ubuntu 22.04

Question

Are there configuration options or methods to reduce this startup time? For instance:

• Parameters to optimize state transitions
• Configuration options for faster startup
• Any recommendations for systems with many drives

The long startup time is becoming a practical issue for our deployment. Any suggestions to reduce it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

log_LongWaitingTime_for_Launch.txt

[kouge0510]

Hello,

I'm experiencing very long startup times when launching a system with multiple CiA402 drives. With 19 drives in my setup, the system takes approximately 1.5 minutes to complete initialization and reach the "Operation Enabled" state for all drives. This initialization time increases with the number of drives.

Issue Details

* From logs, I can see it takes significant time for drives to transition through all states (Switch on Disabled → Ready to Switch On → Switch On → Operation Enabled)

* Each drive seems to be initialized one after another rather than simultaneously

* Many PDO entries are printed during startup which adds overhead

System Information

* Using ethercat_driver_ros2

* 19 drives with vendor_id: 0x9a, product_code: 0x30924

* ROS 2（ROS Humble）running on Ubuntu 22.04

Question

Are there configuration options or methods to reduce this startup time? For instance:

* Parameters to optimize state transitions

* Configuration options for faster startup

* Any recommendations for systems with many drives

The long startup time is becoming a practical issue for our deployment. Any suggestions to reduce it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

log_LongWaitingTime_for_Launch.txt

Hi,I control 7 motors,it cost about 15s to start,the motors start one by one,so I don't know whether it is normal for all the drivers to start with your interval.

[anubhav-dogra]

Same here, 7 motors is taking like 5-6 seconds to go the OP mode, I haven't added any delay in the trajectory controller or anything.
System goes to OP mode eventually, but sometimes it just stuck for few seconds.

I am also unable to understand why the following logs are coming up continuously in the CSP mode only.

[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Fault with status word :4744
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch on Disabled with status word :4816
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Ready to Switch On with status word :4785
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch On with status word :4787
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Fault with status word :4744
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch on Disabled with status word :4816
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Ready to Switch On with status word :4785
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch On with status word :4787
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Fault with status word :4744
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch on Disabled with status word :4816
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Ready to Switch On with status word :4785
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch On with status word :4787
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Fault with status word :4744
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch on Disabled with status word :4816
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Ready to Switch On with status word :4785
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch On with status word :4787
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Fault with status word :4744
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch on Disabled with status word :4816
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Ready to Switch On with status word :4785
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch On with status word :4787
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Fault with status word :4744
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Switch on Disabled with status word :4816
[ros2_control_node-1] STATE: Ready to Switch On with status word :4785

It stops after publishing any trajectory though.