Posted to News on 27th Aug 2008, 16:52
Stepper units incorporate motion control and encoder functions
Trinamic Motion Control is launching the PANdrive PD-140-42-SE mechatronic unit that contains a powerful motion control element in combination with a 42mm (NEMA 17) stepper motor. As an additional benefit, this series also has the proprietary encoder function sensOstep (identifiable by the SE in the product code). This encoder helps to achieve exact positioning in microstepping mode and/or stall detection. The Hall-effect sensor delivers an absolute resolution of 4096 impulses per turn. This economical integration into the electronics of the PANdrive provides an encoder feedback without significant additional cost.
Programming and motion control are performed using TMCL (Trinamic Motion Control Language). It is therefore said to be very easy to program movements with commands for position and rotation. Comprehensive programs can be stored in the on-board EPROM for standalone operation. The PC-based software development environment TMCL-IDE contains an integrated debugger. As an option, Trinamic offers a CANopen firmware.
USB or optional RS232, RS458 or CAN are available for serial communications. Small JST connectors for connecting the interfaces, voltage supply and other I/O modules are included.
The stepper motor is controlled as usual by Trinamic's own motion control ICs. The motion control profiles are calculated in real time in the hardware. Parameters such as position, velocity and acceleration can be adjusted during operation. As the motion control is executed in the hardware, this saves CPU capacity. The software can therefore be kept simple, which saves engineering and service costs.
There are three types of PANdrive PD-140-42-SE available, with a supply voltage up to 28.5 V and with a maximum torque of 0.27, 0.35, 0.49Nm or 0.65Nm. The resolution is 64 microsteps per full step.
PANdrives are compact mechatronic units suitable for various motion control applications. There is a wide variety of stepper or brushless DC (BLDC) units with different motor sizes. One of the main advantages of the all-in-one units is that they eliminate the need for costly and trouble-prone connection cables.
For more information, go to www.trinamic.com/tmc/render.php?sess_pid=252.
