Axis Motion Control System Hardware Overview
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The picture to the right shows the major components supplied with the standard Axis Motion control system:
See the Hardware Component List for the list of components supplied with the standard system and for the knife and laser options available. |
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Schematic Drawing of the System Hardware
System Installation
The system has been designed for ease of use and installation. It is quite feasible to be drawing shapes on the PC and driving the motors within an hour of starting the installation. To install the system you only need to:
· install the PCI Interface card into a PCI slot in your computer;
· connect the cables from the PCI card to the control box;
· connect the cables from the Control Box I/O Card to the motors;
· install the Profiler software into the dedicated PC running MSDOS and
· run Profiler.
Descriptions of the System Components
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Component |
Description |
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Control Box |
The control box is a heavy duty industrial control cabinet with dimensions 300*600*155mm. Containing power supply circuit, microstepper drives, I/O interface card and cooling system. |
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Microstepping Drive |
The drives are 3A (rms) current chopping microstepper drives. They have been designed along with the motors to match each other. This ensures a much smother, accurate and non resonant motion of the motors. The drives can be varied to provide 4,8,16 or 32 steps per conventional 1.8° turn of a motor. The drives are supplied already wired to the I/O card and the outputs are wired to the D connectors on the side of the box. |
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Motor cables |
The cables provided are 4 core 0.75mm mutistrand with overall braided shield suitable for use in standard cable carriers. Standard length supplied is 6m but these cables can be cut or lengthened by the user. Other lengths are available on order. The cables are supplied with all connectors required to connect to the motors and the control box. |
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This card allows for easy connection of all inputs and outputs to the PCI card in the computer. It has IDC pin connections for the microstepping drive control. It also has 8 relay outputs for tool control such as on and off for routers and lasers. Mist and fluid control is another common use for some of these outputs. The timing diagrams of these outputs are shown in the software manual. The card also interfaces to the various sensors such as limit sensors and height control sensors. The card provides filtering and isolation of these inputs for the PCI card. Connectors are supplied for all inputs. |
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Power Supply Circuit |
The power supply is simple and reliable. It comprises a 300VA toroidal transformer with 3 secondary windings each with rectifiers and smoothing capacitors. |
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Cooling System |
The control box utilises two mains powered cooling fans. One is located inside the box to circulate the air and the other is mounted on the back of the box to help dissipate heat from the backing plate. This allows it to be used in tropical climates. |
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Input cable |
to connect PCI Card to I/O card, 25 Core shielded data cable 4m long. |
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Output cable |
to connect PCI Card to I/O card,25 Core shielded data cable 4m long. |
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PCI interface card |
High Speed I/O card used to interface the computer with the control system. The card sends control signals to the machine and also receives sensor inputs. |
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Stepping Motors |
The 3 Motors supplied with the system are NEMA Size 34 Step Motor with double shaft and 1.8°/step. They have been especially designed and developed for cutting machines. They have good torque-speed characteristics and have been designed to work with microstepping drives supplied to reduce resonance. This is very important if you are designing a laser cutting machine. |
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Axis limit sensors |
3 inductive proximity sensors are supplied with connections for control box. |
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Hand Console |
The hand console is supplied for easy machine control while standing at or over the machine. It has a serial communication link with the PC and can be used to completely control the machine and also to select files. It contains a 2*20 segment LCD display and a 4*4 touchpad for user interaction. |
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Hand Console cable |
A 1.5m curly cable is supplied with the hand console for attachment to the machine |
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Hand Console Long Range Communicator (LRC) |
This box converts the serial RS232 signal into a current loop to allow long communication to the hand console and to reduce interference on the signal line. |
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Profiler software on a CD ROM and two floppy disks |
The software is supplied with easy installation procedures on floppy and CD rom |
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MSDOS 6.22 for real-time controller |
A full version of MSDOS 6.22 is supplied with manual for use on the machine computer |
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Manual with technical appendices |
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Control PC |
Runs Profiler and should be at least a 200MHz Pentium, with two 9 pin D serial ports, PS/2 mouse and keyboard, 1 parallel port. |
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Height control sensors |
supplied with connections for control box. Included in Laser options. |
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