In a ring with 32Mbit Flex protocol, up to 15 devices can be connected. All configuration and measurement data are transmitted in the ring.

ibaPDA automatically detects the devices in the ring and automatically determines the maximum possible sampling rate, depending on the type and number of the devices.

In the ring, also other 32Mbit Flex capable iba devices can be integrated, e. g. ibaPADU-S-CM like in the example above. The devices in the ring are addressed using the rotary switch for the device address (rotary switch S2 for ibaBM-DP).

The individual devices in the ring can work with different cycle times. However, these cycle times have to be an integer multiple of the smallest cycle. Example: Device #1 works with 0.5 ms, device #2 with 1 ms, device #3 with 4 ms, etc. If the max. data rate is exceeded, ibaPDA issues an error message that advices you to enhance the timebase and decrease the data amount.

The calculation of the maximum data amount depends on the fastest device in the ring. This means: If you increase the cycle time of slow devices in the ring topology, this does not mean that a higher amount of data can be transferred. Only when the cycle time of the fastest device in the ring is increased, the data amount can be increased.

For more information about data allocation in a 32Mbit Flex ring, see chapter Calculation of the telegram size with 32Mbit Flex.

Note
	Due to the large data amounts which are usually acquired with ibaBM-DP, it is appropriate in most cases to operate only one device on a 32Mbit Flex link, see chapter Data acquisition 32Mbit Flex.