JeffLowe

I understand the new compare function that is suppose to replace this function from older releases of the IDE, but the compare function does not have gate settings in it. Please consider bringing the older Delta Tau|Configure|Setup Variables function. The speed with which we could access almost all variables has not been matched with the newer function.

Hi Curt, Let me describe my issues. On a 460 with Wago I/O can add modules (with the proper power cycle of course) for options and the stored project boots and runs as expected. I can then, under plc control at runtime, configure these additional I/O modules and subsequently use the optional functionality. On the Quad core I have a running/saved project and when I add additional I/O modules the project will no longer boot and run. additionally, turning the machine off and removing the added I/O modules does not correct the problem. The project no longer boots and runs. It is necessary to do a $$$*** and build, download, and save the project all over. The downside of this is that every single option and/or combination of options is going to require its own project. From a revision control perspective, this is untenable. is there any way around this?

In reading the manual I find this: If Sys.EcatType is 0 at power-on/reset, the IgH Etherlab stack is used. The high-priority tasks of this stack execute in the processor’s “kernel space”, so execute efficiently and with lower latencies. This permits higher network update frequencies. It must be used if “local” motors are to be controlled as well. However, this stack has a smaller feature set and more limited interactive setup software. If Sys.EcatType is 1 at power-on/reset, the Acontis EtherCAT stack is used. This stack supports a broader array of EtherCAT peripheral devices, and has more extensive setup support through the “EC-Engineer” development software. However, it executes in the processor “user space” and so cannot support as high network update frequencies as the Etherlab stack. . Our system consists of mostly "Local" motors due to performance constraints, yet we forced by the latest IDE and the ARM to use Acontis. Since Acontis is lower performance is there a strong reason why support for etherlab has been abandoned? In addition, the machine IO for our machines is mutable, that is we can add or alter attached options at boot time but Acontis support for that type of operations is limited/non-existant. The only saving grace I can see to Acontis is that it does not crash the IO when executing saves or opening/closing the IDE.

Yes Steve, I have read that section of the manual, but the information contained there is insufficient for any practical application, for example: This data is to be read by the ECT, but as a velocity signal, how is that processed? Does the ECT type have enough information to understand that the data is the first derivative of position, does it try to differentiate it again? In the block diagram of the control loop it shows position is automatically passed through a 1/z-1. Is there a way to override this? Do i set the ECT do integrate this value and then allow the pos2 input differentiate it again to arrive back at velocity? This is really worthy of an app note, or a few paragraphs in the manual to explain its application.

The AutoCorrecting Interpolator (ACI) on the Acc24E3 is capable of generating a high quality velocity feedback signal. Is there any guidance or app notes on how to set this up, scaling, Encoder Table settings, and so on for using this option?

The ACI is capable of generating a high quality velocity signal, but the hardware manual talks a lot about scaling and such. Is there some simple guidance to setting these and treatment through an encoder table entry for using this feature? Side note: we use the registers these signals come through during setup to match the magnitude and offset of the sine/cosine signals so need to be able to switch between the standard differential derived velocity and the one generated by the ACI.

In the user manual it states that the algorithms for calculating the trajectory for this are similar to normal PVT mode. Is there documentation of what the differences are. I have a customer query regarding the calculation of the slope at each control point that I would like to provide some documentation for.

In the Turbo PMAC for a high resolution rotary position axis operated in continuous motion, there are travel limits when using special lookahead would cause discontinuities in the rotary velocity due to apparent changes in velocity due to loss of LSB resolution in the floating point calculations. This occurred long before the reaching rollover of the binary position register. Does the Power PMAC have any similar issues?

We use /opt/ppmac/tune/othertrajectory to conduct tuning experiments and upload the data from /var/ftp/gather in matlab for filter design. Under firmware 2.1.1.3 this creates two files in gather, othertrajectory.txt and othertrajectory_debug.txt, the first of which contains the results, and the second the parameters from the test. Under 2.5.3.88 the data file no longer exists and instead the files are concatenated together under the _debug file. Is this a bug, or is there a switch that I can use to create the original two files?

Is this a foreshadowing of a planned obsolescence? In our application the 465ex does not work (tested it, opening and closing windows in the IDE starves the Ethercat IO) and the ARM has some endian issues with some of our code.

Eric, I have been tuning PMACs for 28 years. I don't especially need a tutorial. I am looking at using these internal tools from my own HMI via telnet so I do not have to involve my users in the intricacies of the IDE. Invoking them does give a list of required parameters, but there is no documentation on values of the inputs, and/or the output from the routines. I assume some of them will be just gathering, but others are generating filter parameters and I need to know what to expect. Way back when we purchased a couple seats of the SDK we were told that anything we could do from the IDE we would be able to implement via the SDK. This has not proven to be the case so I am looking at what it would take to tunnel down and invoke these functions directly.

Is there documentation for the routines in this directory? I have some applications where I may want to design a filter or do some testing of an axis with variable load.

Is this product officially dead?

To be clear, you are running an external interpolator and generating a 40 MHz edge rate on the quadrature? This is the extreme edge of what is possible and will require near perfect signals. Since you have a sine encoder have you considered using the Delta Tau sine interpolator, either the normal or the newer AutoCorrecting Interpolator (ACI)? At very high effective count rates these work much better.

There are 3 version 1.0.0.0 out there, along with a couple version 2.0 that in Programs and features list as 2.0 and in help about list as 2.0.0.0 or 1.1.1.1 or 2.0.0.1 Pretty much scattered.

Trying to move our project to Git and I keep ending up with my background CPLC being set to content instead of compile after pulling from the repository. I am apparently missing a file in the project that stores that decision. Which file should I add to my repository to compile the CPLC?

Yet again, there were no reported problems with the ACC24E3 amp enable circuit either, but the ECO process on that one is a major headache for us right now. The CPU uses the same opto relay and I just was hoping someone could look at the schematic and verify if the same driver nand gate was used and/or the same pullup. I am just hoping we can be proactive.

I note that the 460EX uses the same LBA716 Dual Single-Pole OptoMOS relay as the ACC24E3. Does it have a similar design problem with an improperly sized driver gate or the excessive current due to a undersized resistor? We have had some faults with this relay.

I setup a 2 pole 100 Hz lowpass on a simple point to point trap profile move. The filter had the intended effect of reducing the acceleration profile from steps to something with less frequency content, but when looking at the commanded position I note the endpoint commanded position overshoots before returning to the desired endpoint. IS this normal?

Attached the requested plots. I stretched the images to have the same horizontal and vertical resolution Both seem circular but not really centered around zero. Do you think this can cause the previous issue? If so, how can I solve it? Maybe a ADC offset? AdcOffset[0] and[1] can be used to reduce offset errors. Problem is we can only see the raw signal, and not the net result, other than doing an FFT on the following error. External signal conditioning solutions such as Heidenhain's IBV6072 do exist and can be used to gain, offset, and phase.

As Curt noted, this is an extreme edge case, specific to air bearing systems. We only stumbled into this when we started doing an exacting balancing of our amplifier input. This balancing was a necessity as the ACC-24E3 Amplifier Enable relay starts to fail in an on state after a couple years and our spindles were running away.

Is there any documentation or comments on what the workaround might be? 1) address servo dac to an unused memory location and write a user written phase routine to copy memory to DAC. 2) Set the motor up as a commutated axis and set the Phase encoder to an unused memory location preset to 0. Note we only discovered this with an air bearing spindle operating at low to moderate speed, ie, no friction operating around 0 +/- 50 counts.

This has been identified as a design flaw within the Gate3 chip. An uncommutated analog motor operating around zero will occasionally fiip sign/magnitude, that is a small negative number may be clocked out as a large positive number, and converse. There are workarounds.

Found it in RtGpShm.h as part of the SHM structure accessed by: unsigned mypartopt1; mypartopt1 = pshm->Gate3PartData[0].Opt1;

PartOpt1..7 are not in the GateArray3 structure. How do I access these in a C PLC?