In a multistation network, the acquisition is started and stopped synchronously on all participants. When the acquisition is started on any system (master or slaves), it starts at the same time on all other participants in the network. The same applies to stopping the acquisition.

The following cases are differentiated:

Starting the acquisition on the multistation master

If the acquisition is started on the master, it first establishes connections to the slaves. If a slave cannot be connected within the set start timeout period, the slave will be disabled. The acquisition then starts on the master and all connected slaves. If no slave can be connected, the master starts in standalone mode.

Starting the acquisition on a synchronized slave

If the acquisition is started on a synchronized slave, it waits until a connection to the master is established. If this does not succeed within the set start timeout period, the slave starts in standalone mode.

Starting the acquisition in case of configuration error

If validation after the start of acquisition reveals that the configuration of a computer is invalid, it is excluded from the multistation network.

• The affected computer is the master: All other slaves start in standalone mode.

• The affected computer is a synchronized slave: As soon as the computer is available, it will be reintegrated into the multistation network.

• The affected computer is a non-synchronized slave: The computer remains excluded from the network until the next acquisition starts.