More trouble with motor definitions for a PowerPMAC - this time a CK3C.

[HJTrost]

I am back at setting up motors in the Power PMAC IDE.  Rather than IDE 4.4.0.99 and a PowerPMAC 465 Clipper with a PowerPC,APM86xxx CPU and firmware 2.5.2.0, I am now using 4.6.0.14 and a CK3C AX1100 with an arm.LS1021A CPU and firmware version 2.7.1,0.

My system uses IM483H-Plus amplifiers operating in torque mode and issuing  step & direction control signals, Schneider M-2218-3.0 and M-2231-3.0 stepper motors with 200 full steps per rev, and US Digital E6 rotary encoders with 2000 lines/rev and quadrature.

I use a single feedback type setup.  The amplifier goes in fine.  The motor shows a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark for an error message saying:
"Your changes cannot be saved as there are validation errors. Please review the entered information."
Yet when I open the motor definition, it has all the information required and there is no complaint shown.

If I rudely redeclare the motor to be a brush motor rather than stepper, the IDE will take it at the expense of a yellow triangle for the encoder (same error message as above) and an additional note in the encoder box saying
"No supported encoder definitions have been created for this motor. To create an encoder click here."
Yet there is already the US Digital E6 decoder defined with the corresponding parts manager.  An attempt to select it as the primary encoder creates a pop-up error message
"The encoder on this Motor Configuration could not be selected because it is not supported by the connected device."

An additional question is what do I do to my script language code: Do I have to replace all references to Clipper[x] with CK3C[x] ?  (This becomes an issue once I got the motor definition matter resolved.)

What am I missing, or what have I lost now?

Jochen

[steve.milici]

The IDE does not set up “Step and Direction” with a feedback device. Typically, an encoder is only used for “feedback verification” to check for a stall condition.

You can do this manually, however.

First setup as open loop stepper (“No Feedback (Step and Direction) Topology”) and get that motion functional, then manually add the encoder settings to get closed loop operation:

1. Wire the encoder.

2. Add the encoder to the end of the ECT using the IDE's ECT editor (note the entry #i: EncTable[i]).

When finished right-click on the encoder file under the “Encoder” folder to upload and populate it with these new settings.

3. Change motor pEnc, pEnc2 to new ECT.

     Motor[x].pEnc = EncTable[i].a

     Motor[x].pEnc2 = EncTable[i].a

4. Change encoder decode to 3 or 7 for proper feedback direction sense.

     Gate3[i].Chan[j].EncCtrl = 3 // 7

5. Execute an open loop test to verify step 4. Make changes as necessary.

When finished right-click on the CK3C page of the “Hardware” folder to upload and populate it with these new settings.

6. Perform full tuning.

When finished right-click on the appropriate motor file under the “Motor” folder to upload (or “Sync Motor Settings ...”) to populate it with these new settings.

Then “save” in the terminal.

The encoder should have the same # of counts per rev of the motor that it has in steps per rev otherwise it will be difficult to tune well.

The new CK3C should accept “Clipper[]” references as well as “CK3C[]”.

Edited August 25, 2023 by steve.milici
Fixed step #5

[HJTrost]

Steve,

thanks for the detailed instructions.

Jochen