jbeasley

I had a power clipper do something like this to me one time a few years back. I made notes at the time but can't seem to locate them. Long story short the filesystem was corrupted by a power surge/short. The unit was unstable and flaky. I could telnet but couldn't ssh and some other weird things like couldn't save configuration changes. I used the serial port to get to a shell and then if memory serves I had to remount the filesystem rw and then used fsck to fix the disk issue. After that I used the usb method to upgrade/replace the firmware so any damaged files would be over written and the system worked perfectly again. I'm not sure if this helps but just wanted to throw it out there.

I have an arm,LS1021A and upgraded to Firmware 2.6.0.0 to test out the Ethernet/IP functionality in the 4.5.1.3 IDE. When I attempted to download I got a message: The connected Power PMAC does not support Ethernet/IP in it's current configuration. Please contact support. Is this an option that needs to be purchased similar to modbus on the older Turbo PMAC systems or am I missing something simple. Thanks, John.

There is some information that SPI is option 1 on the encoder support table but seems to have been omitted from the printed documentation. Was this implementation also removed from the firmware? Did it support the Chip Select portion of the protocol and what was the pinout on the PowerBrick connectors? I realized noise immunity is a problem but I'm just poking around at this point. I was playing around with a CUI absolute encoder that states it's SSI but in fact is some variation of SSI that resembles SPI on the hardware level with CS low for addressing the module and single ended data and clock. I was going to look at using a differential line driver to convert the single ended Data and Clock to RS422 specifications but it's pointless if I don't have the CS cycled low during the transmission. I'm also looking at using an FPGA to interface with the 3 wire SSI and then send that data over to the Power Brick with Standard SSI but this adds another layer of complexity I would rather avoid if possible. Thanks John.

Thanks. That worked like a charm. Motor is fully tuned and working great. Only 5 more to go. Have a great Holiday weekend. John.

I opted to go with the CUI AMT33 encoder because it provides the ability to zero the commutation angle along with hall outputs and programmable encoder. I turned the rotor end down to size. Reassembled the motor and fitted the replacement encoder. I applied DC current to U and V and I'm seeing 4 defined magnetic positions. That should make this an 8 pole motor? I locked it up with DC into U and V and configured the encoder to 8 pole / 2048 ppr / Zeroed the Commutation angle. I stepped through the GUI setup for the motor and passed everything. I have a very soft / slow control with closed loop. If I try to issue open loop commands from the terminal it either locks in a position, runs away or makes some really odd sounds and trips the i2t. If I phase it again it will return so soft slow closed loop control. If I attempt to adjust the jog speed it will run away / lock in position / trip i2t. Pick any one. I'm pretty sure the commutation angle is not set correctly. Is there a way to lock the motor into a zero angle using the delta tau controller so I can try to zero it there. Thanks John.

Couldn't get it to work. I tried every protocol and a bunch of random message types. I hooked up my scope and see the Brick sending the commands but the the Sankyo Seiki encoder wouldn't respond or do anything. I was thinking about replacing it with a CUI AMT232B-V absolute encoder that supports SSI and would use the same number of pins so I can use the existing wiring harness. I'll have to turn the encoder end of the rotor down on my lathe as the shaft is to big to support the AMT device. I just ordered one for now to see if it will even work. When I pulled the motor apart I saw the pole configuration in my picture and got confused? I'm assuming they must have the stator wound in a way that the poles line up but from the looks of it there are 9 poles that don't line up. I had not even bothered to push a little holding current into the motor yet to check the pole count since I normally do that after I get the encoder working. Talk about proprietary. I just wanted to share this. Have a good weekend. John.

Does anyone have experience interfacing a Power Brick AC with a OTC Daihen Robot Manipulator. This is just a project I am doing for fun to teach myself Kinematics. I have a manual and pinouts for the old (2000 era) manipulator and it states it uses Sankyo Seiki Servos with Absolute encoders utilizing a S+ S- encoder data connection. I'm hoping to one day have my own "Rotating Forks Demo" Thanks John.

Thanks for the info Steve. For my application I think the 4 PFM outputs and using the 4th open loop PWM DAC for the Spindle Speed control will work perfect.

I was playing around with a Power Clipper looking to replace my Power Brick CNC Controller with a Clipper and some Stepper Drivers so I could use the Brick for another dev project. I was looking for a way to run the Siemens VFD on the spindle. I currently do through an analog output for speed and digital i/o for direction which are controlled by a sub program (for G Code). Anyway I was wonder since I'm not using the Filtered DAC outputs on the clipper if I could just write to them directly to control the VFD speed while I used the PFM for the Stepper Driver which worked fine. I then got curious what would happen if I setup a 5th motor and encoder on the #4 Axis Output using the Encoder input and Axis #4 Filtered PWM DAC output and it seems to work fine? So does this mean you can actually run 8 motors on a Base model Power clipper 4 Open loop Steppers and 4 Closed loop DAC Servos or is this bad practice? What would be the downside? Thanks John.

Got it figured out. Took a little bit of work but it was my hardware firewall. It anyone else has this issue you just need to port forward TCP / 18999 through your firewall to the Machine running the IDE. When you open the Tune or Plot interface the IDE starts a listener on the Local Computer and then runs netcat on the remote PMAC to stream the data across. The options to gather stay greyed until the connection from the PMAC to the Local IDE is completed. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. John.

Definitely a network/firewall issue just not on my computer. I could not Tune Either but I have a shop PowerPMAC that I have tuned many servos on. When I disconnect from the PMAC out on in the Plant and connect to my local unit I have Plot and Tune options. There must be something getting blocked by my hardware firewall between my shop and the factory floor that the NAT translation is not handling properly maybe some kind of UDP connection. I will shoot you an email but first I'm going to look at the netstat while connected to my local unit and try and port forward the connections from the factory. Thanks John.

I don't think the issue is firewall related, but I could be wrong. Is there a way i can issue some manual commands to the datagather console app to get more debug information? Attached are screenshots of the requested information.

I am using IDE 4.4.1.7 with a Power UMAC, PowerPC,460EX Firmware: 2.5.1.2 Same IDE revision and configuration on my laptop and plot works fine. I have disabled my firewall completely and there was no change. I attached a screenshot.

I have an issue on my desktop where the Delta Tau --> Tools --> Plot feature doesn't work? To this point I had only tuned on my Laptop which works fine but now I am an a point where I wanted to do some runtime adjustments from the shop while monitoring via ip cameras. I can't seem to figure out what is wrong. I uninstalled and reinstalled and tried all kinds of different things but the Data Gather option just stays greyed out. If I switch to Legacy mode it appears to let me gather but the upload portion locks up and never completes. Any ideas would be appreciated. I am going to try and clear my registry settings and user profile settings next but just wanted to reach out and see if this is a known issue with a solution.

I'm using IDE 4.4.1.7 with a UMAC PowerPC,460EX with Firmware 2.5.1.2 I hardly ever get this error so I'm not too worried about it I just wondered if it was something I was doing that caused it. It was just frustrating on the day I posted this because I had about 5 minutes left to upload and test my changes before production resumed and it gave me the error so I just opted to leave the changes out for that production cycle and make them at the next maintenance cycle and they worked fine. I haven't had it happen since. Thanks John.