We ran into an issue on a customer install. We were incorrectly informed that Diax02 drives support the Drive Internal Interpolation mode that we have historically used on multi-Axis installs. It turns out this is incorrect.

Rather than relying on the Drive to calculate the Position Profile Setpoints for an axis move, we had to add the capability for the controller to generate them.

These are 30-year-old drives, SERCOS is also an obsolete technology. The customer’s line is down, and they have several more lines with these same drives. With all these things in mind, some compromises were made to speed up the implementation.

The setpoint generation requires our operating system to be in sync with the SERCOS Bus. We already do this by using the SERCOS chip to run our OS on SERCOS Closed Loop Controllers. For this and the previously stated issues, this support is only available on the Closed Loop models with the SERCOS option.

A new Driver Type called "Local SERCOS Diax02" has been added.

A new Check box in the SERCOS Settings window "Diax02 Operation" is available on the Closed Loop controller with the SERCOS option. When this box is checked all SERCOS drives will be configured in operation modes known to work on Diax02 drives. For Multi-Axis drives, the Local SERCOS Diax02 driver type must be used. . The Local SERCOS Diax02 drive can be used on a more modern drive Diax03 or higher as it still uses settings and operating modes that are available in those drives.

Only SERCOS drives with the appropriate drive type will be visible in Diagnostics. A Run Mode entry test will display an error if the wrong type has been selected.

Other than the Driver Type, the only visible difference between a "Local SERCOS" and a "Local SERCOS Diax02" driver will be the Diax02 type will have an Acceleration parameter that is required in order to generate the motion profile.

The Diax02 version does not support S-Curves. Those were provided by the Drive Internally when it generated the motion profile.

A bug was found in the Diax02 drives we had available to test with. The Velocity parameters were found to only work reliably in the drives when configured for RPM. We chose to use Preferred scaling, where the drive chooses its own prefereed scaling.

Velocity drives, for Feeders and Die Accelerators still operate in the Velocity mode they have always used. Velocity will be in RPM so drive scaling will require some new math to RPM instead of Inches/minute.

Multi-Axis drives now operate in Position Mode where we have to send a postion setpoint on each drive sample. The XL is generating the motion profile with these setpoints.

Additional help for configuring these drives can be found in the Support One-Note.