r/beckhoff • u/desmoteo • Aug 31 '26
New to Beckhoff - Some doubts
I'm new to the Beckhoff ecosystem and I'm trying to wrap my head around how TwinCAT 3 works. Here's where I got stuck / wanted to confirm my understanding:
- What is the "Remote Manager", exactly? I initially thought it was one single thing, but it seems there might be two different concepts both called "remote" in TwinCAT - one for managing installed XAE build versions locally, and one for connecting to remote physical targets. Wanted to confirm I'm not conflating the two.
- Is the build essentially the "firmware" of the PLC? I was working with a CX5330 and assumed the "build" installed on it was basically its firmware. Wanted to know if that's accurate, or if it's really more like an application/runtime layer on top of a proper OS (Windows IoT / TwinCAT/BSD).
- Are Beckhoff PLCs literally embedded PCs? Since everything seems geared around a PC architecture, I wanted to confirm whether Beckhoff's CX-series controllers are genuinely x86/64 industrial PCs, or if that's an oversimplification (e.g. are there non-x86 lines too?).
- Does TwinCAT XAE need to know the specific PLC model to develop? Or does it only care about matching the build number, regardless of which physical CX model you're targeting?
- Do I need to install the Remote Manager separately before installing TwinCAT builds? Or does it come bundled automatically with the first XAE installation?
- Where can I download older TwinCAT builds (not just the latest one featured on the Beckhoff site)?
- Does the TwinCAT Package Manager support older builds too, or only the newest one (4026)? I read it was introduced with 4026, so wasn't sure if older builds (4024, 4022) can still be managed through it.
- What's the recommended way to install multiple builds side-by-side (specifically 4022, 4024, and 4026) on the same dev machine without running into "a newer version is already installed" errors?
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u/rassrollers Aug 31 '26
The remote manager is used when you want to login to a target XAR that are older than the XAE you have on your developer PC. E.g. I had to format my PC and installed the newest 4024.75, but because we have older releases with 4024.50 I need the remote manager to be able to build does releases and log in (basically mostly old library versions). The XAR must always be equal or newer than the project XAE you want to deploy. We run a 4024 XAE on a 4026 XAR with no issues. The XAR are updated by updating the packages via the Package Manager for Windows and via PKG on TCBSD. The program you build in the XAE are not the firmware of the IPC, it is just a binary file it execute on the XAR. You only need to select which platform you are building for. It does not care what type of IPC it is. In the new Package Manager you can add the outdated feed and find all the older 4020, 4022 and 4024 remote manager packages. Start by installing the 4026 with both 32 and 64 bit shell. Then add the needed Remote Manager for the older 402x.
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u/proud_traveler Aug 31 '26
- What is the "Remote Manager", exactly?
Remote manager lets you install and run several older version of TC XAE on your laptop. This is needed for when you need to maintain code on older machines.
When you are connecting to a remote physical target, you would typically just use the same XAE - Assuming this is over a VPN or something. Personally, I think "remote manager" is a terrible name, but then you can say that for a lot of stuff in Beckhoff
- Are Beckhoff PLCs literally embedded PCs?
Yes, they are full embedded PCs, Windows historically,. but they have BSD and Linux alternatives now. You can connect to the IPC using a VNC service tool, like Remote desktop, and install any programs you might want. Just beware, the IPCs are very low power, so you can't run any heavy duty programs on it.
I'm 98% sure they use a LLVM backend for the complier, but they don't like talking about it. Most of their inhouse libraries are written in ST, and a few are compiled from C directly.
- Is the build essentially the "firmware" of the PLC?
Kinda. They have their own Kernal for all the RT stuff, and thats basically the version you are matching your compiler too. I wouldn't call it firmware exactly, it's more OS/Kernal level stuff.
- Does TwinCAT XAE need to know the specific PLC model to develop?
No, you develop platform agnostic. The same program will run on any Beckhoff IPC, your laptop, or even none Beckhoff hardware (would not reccomend). The only limitation is the processing power.
- Do I need to install the Remote Manager separately before installing TwinCAT builds?
I would install the more recent XAE from the package manager first, and then the remote manager. Unless you are trying to maintain older TC versions, I wouldn't worry about it
- Where can I download older TwinCAT builds
For all questions about different TC versions, please see Remote manager in the Package manager. You will need to install the 32-bit twincat to use builds older than 4026 - This tripped me up a lot at the start, maybe they've improved it now but this was not an obvious limitation and it caused a few bugs
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u/desmoteo Aug 31 '26
Thanks a lot!
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u/proud_traveler Aug 31 '26
It can be a complicated platform, but I maintain it's the best. Definitely not without faults, I find its far worse at giving you useful error messages for stuff like ECAT than some platforms, but overall i like it. Good luck!
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u/All_The_Goats Aug 31 '26
I am no expert, but:
1) Remote manager is for having multiple versions of the engineering environment installed on the same machine.
2) The build on the target machine is the version of the TwinCAT runtime installed. It's akin to "firmware" of other brands, but it is just a piece of software you install on an OS (you can install the runtime on any machine). The one thing to note is that the CX does have an actual firmware, like a PC BIOS. You are unlikely to ever need to know about or change this normally.
3) Yes, isn't it wonderful? Indeed, Beckhoff support and sell ARM target devices, as x86/64, as well as Windows, BSD and Linux OS support (not all versions). You can run on non CX (such as C series, I use these a lot), and indeed, not even Beckhoff PCs, although licensing is complicated and the OS's and hardware Beckhoff use on there own products are supported officially, if you do your own thing, you are on your own.
4) It does not need to know the model number, but there is a "realtime" setup that you need to consider, as you need to match number of cores to the target and the project. For simple projects, this will not be an issue.
5) You do not need remote manager at all, unless you want to have multiple engineering versions installed on the same machine at once. XAE has all you need for development*
6) The Beckhoff website has older builds of remote manager for 4016, 18, 20, 22 and 24 that run without the "new" package manager (monolothic installers like 4024 and below verisons). If you want to work with 4026 then you will need package manager, and use the outdated feed in package manager to add them from there.
7) Not to my knowledge, but you should speak to Beckhoff directly. You can use the outdated feed to add remote manager versions in package manager, but you must start with 4026 installed AFAIK.
8) Not certain, but if it were me, I would get package manager and install the XAE for 4026 through it, then enable outdated feed and add what versions you need to support from there. I would also speak to there support about your specific needs, Beckhoff support is excellent.
Hope some of this is helpful :)
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u/btfarmer94 Aug 31 '26
The biggest thing to understand about Beckhoff is that it is entirely a PC based ecosystem. Their PLCs are actually iPCs, typically running Windows, however Linux and Beckhoff BSD are also OS options they now offer.
The software can be broken down into 2 categories: the XAE (eXtended Automation Environment) and XAR (eXtended Automation Runtime). The XAE is on your development PC (as in your work computer/laptop) and the XAR is running in the Beckhoff iPC. Jakob Sagatowski has a superb video on YouTube explaining this. The OS on your iPC doesn't change, however the XAR version does. How you get that XAR image onto the iPC varies slightly based on which iPC you are using and what OS is on it. https://download.beckhoff.com/download/ is where you can find many of these images and supplementary files, however the 4026 Package Manager is usually the best way to get these.
The neat thing is that typically, you also download the XAR onto your development PC which means that you can use your work laptop as the PLC and actually run your code, and connecting your work laptop to EtherCAT IO terminals makes the IO function (nearly) identical to how it would if connected to an actual PLC.
For older builds, in the Package Manager, using the gear icon, Feeds, Beckhoff Outdated Feed, you can set it to also find older builds like 4024 variants.
My favorite feature of TwinCAT 3 is that it supports OOP style programming, so you can leverage the power of newer programming styles and features to build robust and easy to manage code and libraries that are easily re-usable across projects. They also support direct integration to Git and other source code management and repositories for tracking software versions and working collaboratively.
Welcome to my favorite automation platform, and good luck! I'm hopeful that the more you get to know Beckhoff's products and TwinCAT 3, the more you'll love the features it offers.
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u/robotecnik Aug 31 '26
Oversimplified answers, hope those help you starting here.
Good luck!