Finding Information on the Festo CPV-10-GE-CO-8

I have a Festo CPV10-GE-CO-8 CANOpen valve terminal. Since I found it very hard to find the documentation for it, I am sharing how and where I found the information.

The Festo CPV series is a modular pneumatic valve system, consisting of a base, side panels, up to 8 valves, and a valve terminal top plate. The valve terminal can be directly wired to each valve solenoid, or it can be a fieldbus interface such as CANOpen, DeviceNet, ASI, or Profibus. The second generation valve terminals have an added “2″ (so the new CANOpen valve terminal is CPV-10-GE-CO2-8), and some added features, such as more connector options (the CO has only one option: a single M12; the CO2 can use DB9M, dual M12, or terminal block), and a connector for adding additional CPV valve blocks to the same fieldbus interface.

Searching on google for model name (CPV-10-GE-CO-8 or CPV10-GE-CO-8) and number (175481) didn’t turn up anything useful. You have to search on Festo’s website using the full text search. For example, searching for CANOpen returns the Info 219 document (Festo CANOpen products overview) and on page 3, the CPV-10-GE-CO-8 manual in English, but not the CPV-10-GE-CO2-8 manual.

The best way is to use Festo’s full text search with the manual part number or  manual designation. The problem is to know what the manual part number or designation is. Fortunately you do not have to guess; that information is available from other sources, such as the Info 201 PDF (Fieldbus Direct products) and Info 219. For older products, it’s fortunately that Festo is logical; the second generation valve terminal’s manual designation is P.BE-CP-CO2-EN, and the original product’s manual designation is P.BE-CP-CO-EN.

The same logic applies if you are trying to find information on other Festo products, such as the CPV10-GE-DN2-8 DeviceNet valve terminal – you need to find the manual designation (in Info 201 or Info 218 (DeviceNet products)), and do a full text search on Festo’s website using the manual designation.

Here are some direct links to the Festo CANOpen information (all links are to PDF’s):

• Info 213 CPV system product catalog
• Info 201 CPV Fieldbus Direct product catalog
• Info 219 CANOpen products catalog
• CPV pneumatics manual, designation P.BE-CPV-EN, part number (or order number) 165 200
• CPV-10-GE-CO-8 manual, designation P.BE-CP-CO-EN, part number 175 580
• CPV-10-GE-CO2-8 manual, designation P.BE-CP-CO2-EN, part number 526 010

Related posts:

1. CANOpen Fun with M12 Connectors
2. Information Resources Part I – Overall Media Types
3. Fieldbus Book Wars
4. A Bunch of Boards