The European Spallation Source (ESS) is a research facility being built in Lund, Sweden. The Integrated Control System (ICS) division at ESS is responsible for defining and providing a control system for all the ESS facility. ICS decided to establish open-source EtherCAT systems for mid-performance data acquisition and motion control for accelerator applications. For instance, EtherCAT will be used when the I/O system needs to be beam-synchronous; it needs to acquire signals in the kHz range;

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... needs to be spread across locations that are far from each other and would need cumbersome cabling, but still, belong to one system. Following the ICS guideline, Motion Control and Automation Group developed EtherCAT Motion Control (ECMC) which is based on EtherLab open-source master. This solution was focused on Motion Control applications, but finally, data acquisition systems will be integrated into EPICS using the same approach. In this paper, we will present the ECMC solution and analyze its features showing some real applications at ESS.