copley controls and softmotion

[jimmyinCT]

 For NI softmotion,  there is specific reference to copley controls Xenus drives in the NI article referenced below.  I need to get the position of a servo tube (stb25 from copley controls) after it has gone through the xenus amplifer.  Will NI softmotion allow me to get the postional data?  Also, the article below mentions external hardware needed to run softmotion such as PXI or PCI cards?  If so, What specific card is needed?  Does this apply to the Xenus amplifer as it seems to have its own RJ11 contverted to serial for an output to connect withi the PC.?  There is also a RJ45 (cat 5) connection on the xenus which can connect to the PC.   I just want to know what hardware I need to use this.

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/3302

 I already have purchased the xenus amplifer, servo tube(stb25), crio (9014) with 4 moduels. from NI.  I am able to control the copley drive from labview via feedback of load cell. But, I cant get the positional data from the copley amplifer. The digital outputs from the drive are just simple high and lows to indicate faults.  Ironically, the CME software has the positional data readily avaiable on the same PC, its just a matter of getting it into labview which i cant do.

I also found an article on the NI site called NI "soft motion controller for copley drives".   This appears to have a another set of hardware which connectsion to the digital IO of the copley servo tube?   What is the part number for this device?  Does the hardware connect to the amplifer or the servo tube? Would it give out positional information or I would have to calculate it myself.  It appears to just do  output though while getting the digital input from elsewhere through. 

http://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/371091c.pdf

Sorry for all the questions. This seems to be a new product line without a lot of documentation and I want to know what is going on before i send more money out..

-Jim

Message Edited by jimmyinCT on 06-06-2009 08:43 AM

[Chris_VH]

Hi Jim,

As you mentioned, we don't have a ton of documentation on this hardware/software, but I will do my best to help you.

First off, the PCI/PXI cards that are being referred to are just CAN devices, that interface form your PC or PXI chassis to CAN, for example, the PXI-8461.

It seems like this does apply to even the Xenus amp, because it SHOULD accept CAN communication (from the documentation) and since the software is built around that, it is what I would reccomend.

So, from everything I have read and the pinouts, it does not appear that positional data is wired into our hardware. The CME software might pick it up, but since the control is done on the smart-drive end, the position is not necessary for anything on the LabVIEW end. I could be wrong here, but that is how it appears. You might be able to find out how the data is getting passed (as far as what wire) to the CME software, and somehow route that to LabVIEW. You could also possibly call the CME code FROM LabVIEW to see what the values are.

Again, the only hardware seems to be CAN devices. Ill attach an image of all of the part numbers:

I hope that this is of some help to you.

[jimmyinCT]

yea, i found those part numbers earlier.

there is no way to correlate them to actual products, but it should point around here.

http://www.ni.com/can/

im dumbfounded why i need a can controller though.

right now, the CME software can read the positional data through the rj-11 -serial connection of the xenus amplifer.

This is listed as a CAN port in the copley manual.

So it just seems odd to be buying hardware and installing software so i can read it in labview when its already on the serial port.

Im going to get the hardware i guess.

[Lorne H.]

All,

NI SoftMotion for Copley Controllers is no longer orderable from National Instruments.  This product has been discontinued.  The tutorial referenced above, "Distributed Machine Control with NI SoftMotion Controller for CANopen - FAQ", is incorrect and out of date.  This document will soon be removed from NI.com.

Jimmy,

As for being able to read the position of your Servotube from the Xenus drive, you can acquire that information over the serial port (either using your host machine or using the cRIO controller).  The simplest way to do this from my perspective would be to use Copley's ASCII interface to communicate with the Xenus over the serial port.  Documentation on Copley's ASCII interface can be found on there website or through the following link...

Copley ASCII Interface Programmer's Guide

Let me know if you have anymore questions.

Lorne Hengst

Motion Control Product Support Engineer

National Instruments 

[jimmyinCT]

thanks Lorne.

Ill just use the ascii commands instead.

The commands should be very simple to do.

 I was having some serial communications issues with the crio and xenus which is why i was looking for another option.

Ill post the solution after i find one.

[jimmyinCT]

this is the specific communication problem with the serial port.

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=280&thread.id=6139

Ill solve this elsewhere but post back once I have the copley working.

[Lorne H.]

Jimmy,

If it allows you to ignore the problems you are having with your PC serial port, you may want to try and communicate with the Xenus drive using the cRIO serial port.

Lorne Hengst

Motion Control Product Support Engineer

National Instruments

[jimmyinCT]

i got it workign a few hours ago.

Its pretty straight forward serial commands right out of the copley handbook.

Just sending a simple command and then reading the responce.

If I had to do more than a few commands it might have been tricky. 

I was having some problems with the serial port which is why it was so complicated.

I kept downloading different serial communication VI templates until i found one that was stable.

IE, not crash after a few hours or run to slow.

thanks again

Message Edited by jimmyinCT on 06-09-2009 01:50 PM

[jimmyinCT]

this is just incase anyone wants to see this in future.

http://www.engr.uconn.edu/~jmacione/temp/copley.vi

it connects labview with copley xenus amplifer with feedback from load cell.

Labview creates different amplificatino on ref+/ref- on xenus which drives servo in responce to load.

so ref+/ref pins need to be connection to a labview analog output port.

Then, it return, i am reading the position of the copley drive via serial port.

I send it a command from the manual (get ram location at 0x17), strip out some characterts on the reutnr (v - 17700), and have the position (17700).

there are a few simple hardwired digital inputs in there too which serve as simple boolean errors in labview. I think its quicker to leave them than to have to queiry for errors via serial. They are digitial IOs from the xenus.

its all logged in excel in the vi.

there is some junnk in there im not using for a position control ill put in later ..

if someone reminds me in a week or so ill put in the final code and schematics.

Message Edited by jimmyinCT on 06-09-2009 01:58 PM

[LGF]

Hi,

Does anybody have an example of how to set up RS232 communication with a Copley Nexus motion controller.  I would like to send a simple set of motion commands over the Windows HyperTerminal and then create a LabVIEW program to control motion.  Thanks,

Luke