AC servo motors and amplifiers for motion control

Fourth Quarter 2007 Electrical switching & drive systems & components

GE Fanuc Automation recently announced the availability of its new VersaMotion AC servo motors and amplifiers, a family of cost effective motion controllers that can be combined with the company's VersaMax Micro for low-end position control applications. The new drives can also be used as a standalone single axis position controller for simple indexing or electronic gear follower applications.

Daniel Coetzee, Manager, Africa, for GE Fanuc Automation explains, "The VersaMotion features power ratings from 100 W to 3 kW and a continuous torque range from 0,3 Nm to 19,1 Nm."

The flexibility of the command interface and user defined operating modes translate to a wide variety of system architectures:

* As a standalone simple position indexer using up to eight stored positions that are selected and triggered using discrete inputs or the serial communication interface. Desired positions can be configured/changed using a teach function or over the serial communication interface. Simple electronic gearing (pulse follower) using a configurable fixed gear ratio is also supported.

* With the VersaMax Micro 20/40/64 built-in CPU motion functions.

* With the new VersaMax Micro 2-axis motion expansion module using the 500 kHz pulse command interface for applications that require more complex motion sequences and basic positioning with registration control.

* With Quick Panel Control and the VersaMax Micro 2-axis motion expansion module using the 500 kHz pulse command interface to provide a well integrated motion, logic and view solution.

* With a DSM314 using either an analogue velocity or analogue torque command (a good replacement option for the obsolete SL series servos).

The VersaMotion amplifiers can be configured for a broad range of single or dual operating modes. In general, there are the following basic modes:

* Internal position mode: control motor position by selecting and executing the eight stored positions. Stored positions can be changed over the serial interface allowing for greater application flexibility.

* External position mode: control motor position using electronic gearing or pulse follower mode by selecting between four user-defined gear ratios. This mode is used to interface the amplifier to a host motion controller (eg, VersaMax Micro) using a pulse command interface.

* Internal speed mode: control motor speed by selecting from the three stored internal speed values.

* External speed mode: control motor speed based on an analogue input.

* Internal torque mode: control motor torque by selecting from the three stored internal torque values.

* External torque mode: control motor torque based on an analogue input.

Combinations of these modes can also be configured to allow on-the-fly switchover of the operating mode using a digital input.

For more information Daniel Coetzee, GE Fanuc Automation, +27 (0)31 583 3640, [email protected], www.gefanuc.com/za

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