third party drive

[Ya-hoo]

I am using AC brushless servo motor for my motion control system. So I have to use a third party drive together with NI's controller. I am wondering whether I have to use an UMI. I read drive advisor in NI's website and it said some third party drive can connect directly to NI's controller, some need UMI. Can anybody tell me what it depends? My drive is Baldor's product. It has enable, forward and reverse limit function. Only things is digital I/O is 24VDC. Is that ok if I use SSR backplane instead of UMI?

I would appreciate you very much if you have any opinion on it.

[Jochen]

If a third party drive provides direct connectivity to NI's controllers that means it has a connector that fits to NI's motion control cables. If necessary signal conditioning is done internally in these drives.

Other drives should be connected to the controller through the UMI. In terms of signal levels you could also use SSR modules but the cabling might become fairly complicated as there is no official cabling option available for connecting motion I/Os like the limit switches to an SSR backplane. You would have to use multiple adaptors and cables and manual wiring in order to do this. If you calculate your working hours this all will cost you much more than purchasing an UMI so I would strongly recommend using the UMI.

Best regards,

Jochen Klier
Applicat
ions Engineering Group Leader
National Instruments Germany GmbH