Analyzing sporadic IO-Link issues during operation

Anyone who works with IO-Link in real machines knows this situation:

The system is basically stable, but from time to time a diagnostic message appears. Communication lost. Timeout. Device not responding. A reset helps – for a while. Then the issue comes back days later.

In many cases this is not a wiring problem, but a timing issue between master and device. And these are the hardest problems to pin down. They occur rarely, cannot be forced, and often disappear as soon as you start measuring.

Classic inline analyzers are of limited help here. You unplug the cable, insert the tool, restart the machine – and the original situation is gone. In the lab, the problem usually cannot be reproduced.

What you really need in these cases is a way to capture the communication while the machine keeps running.

This is exactly where the IO-Link Spy comes in.
It is simply clipped onto the existing IO-Link cable and passively taps the signal. No interruption, no influence on timing, no impact on machine operation. The captured data is transferred to a PC and can be analyzed in detail – including timing, requests, responses, and protocol behavior.

This makes it possible to see rare effects that only show up in real operation: delayed responses, unexpected sequences, or protocol irregularities that occur only occasionally. And most importantly, you see them when they actually happen.

For commissioning, service, and test environments, this makes a real difference. The machine keeps running while the root cause is analyzed. A vague diagnostic message turns into a clear, data-based explanation.