One of our clients needed a quick turn custom gantry robot. Here is what we were able to come up with http://www.youtube.com/user/ASautomation
Integrated pulley gearboxes save space, increase performance
Apex Dynamics releases the new Ultra Compact Integrated Geared Pulley Drive AL series. The AL eliminates the need for a right angle gearbox, couplings and or additional bearings, in turn, reducing cost, increasing performance, and reducing parts and engineering time from the system.
The AL series utilizes a fixed planet design, which allows the output housing of the gearbox to drive the pulley versus a standard shaft driven system. This new technology and design allows the pulley to be centered in between two high capacity bearings which increases stiffness and radial load capacities to over 2 times competitive models.
The True Helical gear design increases tooth-to-tooth contact ratio by over 33% vs. the standard spur gearing geometry. The Helix angle is optimized and produces smooth and quiet operation at extreme speeds. (Less than 2 arc-min, less than 56dB, up to 10,000rpms input).
The product is offered in 7 sizes (70mm thru 280mm) and is equipped with standard single & double stage ratios (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90). Covered by the industry leading 5-year tip to toe warranty and delivery is guaranteed with in two weeks or it’s FREE.
Dynapar HDN and HDP shaftless encoders work everywhere, including fishtanks
Dynapar has a series of encoders: the HDN and DHP shaftless encoders.. As the video below shows, the encoders are completely contactless. You put a magnet onto the end of the shaft being monitored, and the encoder monitors the changes in the magnetic field as the shaft rotates. Because you don’t need any contact with the encoder, it’s very easy to use in applications where you would normally need a shaft and a seal. They even show the encoder working in a fish tank!
You can find more information in Dynapar’s press release and in a sample datasheet data sheet for the encoder.
Manufacturing sales showing signs of life
According this story from Control Design, sales of manufacturing equipment are starting to rebound a bit. Sales nationwide were up 9% in July, but still down 55% from a year ago. It looks like the Southeast is doing the best and the Northeast is the hardest hit.
Posted in: Industry News Comments closed
YouTube Videos
We’ve started adding YouTube videos to the website. You’ll start to find them sprinkled around our vendor profile pages and here on our Automation Update blog. You can also follow our videos by subscribing to our YouTube channel or following our YouTube RSS feed.
Here are a few of our favorite videos:
Advanced Motion Controls overview. This video includes an introduction to AMC’s design philosophy, a description of their product capabilities, and a tour of their integrated manufacturing and R&D facility in California.
B&R Automation Studio Preview. This video demonstrates the power of B&R’s integrated approach to automation software. Automation Studio is a comprehensive programming tool that supports logic and I/O, visualization/HMI, motion, diagnostics, safety, and project management.
Nexen Roller Pinion System. It’s always cool to see products in action, especially when they are new and innovative ones like Nexen’s Roller Pinion System (RPS). The RPS combines some of the advantages of ballscrews, belts, and linear motors to provide high speeds, high loads, high accuracy, and long travel all at a reasonable cost.
Speed, accuracy, load capacity, & travel: Pick all four
When it comes to linear motion, there is always a tradeoff between speed, accuracy, load capacity, and length of travel. Nexen has created an innovative new technology that helps ease these tradeoffs. Their Roller Pinion System (RPS) combines the advantages of linear motors, ballscrews, and belt drives to provide fast linear motion with zero backlash, high accuracy, and long travels.
With traditional rack and pinion systems, the pinion gear teeth slide along the rack teeth as the pinion rotates. To reduce wear and friction, a small clearance is required between the rack teeth and pinion teeth. Depending on the application, this may introduce too much inaccuracy. For higher accuracy, a ballscrew might be used, but ballscrews have a limited length and speed. Linear motors address the speed and length issue, but the cost of long magnet tracks can be prohibitive.
The RPS system addresses the accuracy and wear issues by using bearing supported rollers and a special rack tooth profile. The rollers meet each tooth along a tangent path and smoothly roll down the tooth face, as opposed to a pinion which slaps into the tooth and then slides down its face. This increases life and lowers noise. The tooth profile is designed so that two rollers are loaded in opposition at all times, providing zero backlash.
The RPS system can achieve speeds up to 11 m/s and provide dynamic thrust up to 14000 N (3150 lbf). Racks can be assembled together in 0.5 and 1 meter increments, allowing unlimited travel lengths. As shown with the sample data below, the system’s accuracy is better than +/- 30 microns and does not vary with travel distance.
The video below shows the RPS system in action.
Customized AMC drives fit into tight spots
AMC has a great range of standard products, but where they really shine is with their ability to deliver customer-specific solutions. AMC’s well-integrated engineering, production, and support organization means that they can support customer-specific products better than many vendors can support standard solutions. Prototypes are produced on the same assembly lines that manufacture production products. The design and engineering, production, QA, and support teams are all in one building so that everyone can work together to deliver high-quality highly customized designs in large volumes.
Here are two examples of AMC’s use of clever customized designs to provide high value solutions that meet tough specifications.
AMC custom drive for fan motor control
This customer turned to us after a consultant was unable to deliver a design for a very challenging application. The customer was a motor manufacturer designing a totally enclosed integrated motor/drive to cool an engine compartment. The fan needed to turn on at 95 °C (203 °F) operate up to 125 °C (257 °F). Most drive manufacturers don’t even rate their drives for storage and transport at such high temperatures!
AMC did a new layout of a standard drive design, upgraded a few critical components, and added software to interface with the customer’s J1939 vehicle network. The result was a drive that fit into a tight spot, delivered low overall cost, and rescued a project that had gotten well behind schedule.
Dual AZ drives with customer-specific mounting card
This customer uses AMC drives to run the azimuth and elevation motors on a highly precise camera mount. Their previous supplier had reliability problems caused by inconsistent assembly and layout. After testing AMC’s standard drives, they determined that AMC’s AZ series of drives provided excellent performance and reliability, but that interfacing them with their existing system would be a challenge.
AMC responded by customizing the heat sinks on the AZ servo drive and creating a custom interface card with relay I/O and the customer’s specified connectors. The resulting product acts as a direct drop-in, added no additional parts cost, and lowered the customer’s costs thanks to reduced assembly costs and increased reliability.
Galil adds PVT mode to Accelera Controllers
Galil recently added support for Position-Velocity-Time (PVT) mode to their Accelera series of motion controllers. PVT mode is a common way of specifying motion trajectories. A trajectory is created from a series of motion segments, each with a specified move time, end velocity, and end positions. The controller then uses a third-order polynomial to smoothly interpolate the velocity and position between the defined points.
PVT mode provides much smoother motion than Galil’s old Contour Mode (also known as PT mode). In PT mode, trajectories are defined as a series of positions and times. The controller moves between the points at a constant velocity. Because each segment has its own velocity (the segment distance divided by the segment time), the controller has to ask for infinite acceleration between each segment. This leads to noisy motion, increased wear on components, and higher power consumption.
The two images below show the difference between PT and PVT modes. The image on the left shows PT mode. The quick changes in velocity can be seen at the transitions between trajectory segments. On the right, PVT mode is used to move through the same positions. As the image shows, PVT mode blends the velocity smoothly between motion segments, keeping the required acceleration as low as possible.
Galil added two commands to support PVT mode. The PV command is used to define the trajectory. Its format is PVn=p,v,t where n is the axis, p is the distance for the segment, v is the velocity for the end of the segment, and t is the time for the segment. The BT (Begin Trajectory) command operates just like standard BG command and is used to start motion on multiple axes at the same time.
For example:
PVA=5000,15000,512
PVA=5000,0,512
PVA=0,0,512
PVA=5000,0,200
PVA=0,0,0
PVB=5000,0,512
PVB=-5000,0,512
PVB=5000,0,512
PVB=0,0,200
PVB=0,0,0
BTAB
EN
You can read about this and other topics in the October issue of Galil’s ServoTrends newsletter.
New Galil firmware supports function parameters
The latest version of Galil’s firmware for their Accelera controllers has a few new features, including parameters for subroutines. This makes a big difference when trying to write compact, readable and easy to maintain code for the Galil. Read on to learn how to pass parameters to subroutines running on the new firmware.
Read More
Automated Tube Handler
This customer manufactures automated biological sample handling systems. Their machines automate the handling of vials and test tubes, organizing them into trays and uncapping them if necessary. Two robot arms sort the samples into the trays used by the analysis equipment. Depending on the test being performed, a decapper module unscrews and removes the caps from the test tubes.
The machine uses two Galil motion controllers. A DMC-2183 eight axis motion controller handles motion control for the X, Y, Z, and theta axes of the two robot arms. Each robot arm moves independently in its own X-Y-Z-Theta coordinate space. A DMC-2143 four axis controller handles the tube decapper module. Galil’s AMP-20440 “sandwich” servo drives are attached directly to motion controllers, which minimizes space, reduces wiring, and saves cost.
Galil’s user-friendly software tools allowed for fast and intuitive software development. The basic motion is programmed on the controller using Galil’s simple two-letter command language. A host PC with a touch screen is used as the GUI/HMI. The PC software is programmed in C#, so Galil’s .NET API was used for seamless communication with the motion controllers, executing the motion programs depending on the system’s state and reading status variables for display to the user.
