PIC Open source Servo Driver Schematics development?

[shahid]

Hi
I am shahid from saudi arabia and working on linear motion can u please send me the source code will talk with u later my email is ele@son.com.sa or sny2ksa@yahoo.com

[jshroff]

@ESjaavik

The Quellcode or the Hex File ist NOT availble, unfortunately.
Only the programmed Atmel Controller (20Euro) and the Crcuit ( Free whis including the Atmel) or/and the PCB ( 8,xx Euro) iss avaible.
I have written the Auhor a Email, the answer is, NO i will not give the Hex or Quellcode for Open Source
Many german People work whis this Servocircuit, an ALL People have no problems whis this, works great
Look here 2 Videos of an CNC the first whis Stepper an than same CNC whis Servodrive whis this circuit.
http://www.jocomomola.de/downloads/downloads.html

Apology for my bad Enlish, I im a german.

Hi do you know where I can order this board/AVR? I looked at the link but did not see any sign for purchase.

[Vider]

If it is usefull, here you can find a servo controler that a design a build few years ago for telescope control (2 axis) (full avr code and schematic),

http://www.saand.es/joseyana/minidrive.htm

It works with avr128, hardware encoder reader (LS7266), and a L298,

Regards

[zekk_2]

Greg: Yes, it's quite common that servo drives take step/dir input. All I have does that. Internally it counts the desired-position value up/down based on step/dir. This means the drive must do the torque, velocity and position loops computations internally. With a voltage input drive often doing just the first or the two first.

And the step/dir servo can take pulses at high speeds. If the motor is not able to follow, it will not loose the end position. It will just loose position on parts of it's journey there. Not like a real stepper where a lost step will never be regained. (Unless by chance it looses the same number of steps going in the other direction.)

Here is a simple approach to the main components, except step/dir input: http://elm-chan.org/works/smc/report_e.html

Hi Einar
Ref. your link to :Here is a simple approach to the main components, except step/dir input: http://elm-chan.org/works/smc/report_e.html

Can you download the software that is posted on http://elm-chan.org/works/smc/report_e.html via the serial I/F on the schematic, or do you need a separat burner to download the software??
Regards
Zekk_2

[mmjpotter]

One neat way (for me, at least -- I'm a programmer) to handle the problem might be to dedicate a chip to read the encoder and also read the commands from the host (PC). By writing the code in assembly language, I believe I could handle 3600 rpm with a 2000 transition per rev. encoder.

Some interesting ideas on this thread!! I agree with Lerman that a dedicated chip to read encoder position is much more reliable than polling (You must be absolutely certain that every pulse is counted ). The 7266R chip mentioned by Vider will track encoders in quadrature mode at 17MHz and they have two 24bit counters with latched outputs, so data can be safely read without interrupting the count.
I use 2 of these on a board with a quad 12bit DAC as a 4 axis servo control.

[mmjpotter]

I appreciate that this thread is for PIC and AVR developers and I confess that I have not used this method for my servo application, but the theory is still relevant and I am interested in the different driver designs and methods of achieving the servo loop.

I understand the reasons and advantages of designing a closed loop system but shouldn’t the controller be closed loop and not just the driver.

There seems to be a common trend here to use step/direction signals as the input commands for the driver.

1:- Are these signals coming from a closed or open loop source? If the source is open loop how will the input be controlled?

2:- Are the signals generated in real time as these will need to be synchronised to the servo time base to achieve accurate feed rates.

[James Newton]

1. The source of the step and direction signals is usually a program on a PC or other controller. For example, turbocnc.com runs on old PC's and generates step and direction signals from the parallel port. With a stepper motor, this is entirely open loop. The point of using stepper motors is that open loop control can (with luck) work accuratly. If you use a servo motor with step and direction inputs, then you are simulating a stepper with the servo. In this case, only the controller needs to be closed loop because the servo isn't able to maintain position by itself the way a stepper motor can (usually).

2. The software can be set to generate the step signals slowly enough that the steppers do not loose position. There is an upper limit on the step rate and so the feed rate, but that depends on a lot of factors so it must be experimented with on the actual machine.

Does that help?

See
http://www.piclist.com/io/stepper/linistep for an open source, PIC based, linear stepper controller.

[mmjpotter]

Thanks James. I think you have provided the answers I expected.

To sum up:-

The source or the step/dir signals i.e THE CONTROLLER is a pc based program similar to Turbocnc,Mach2,etc and these are open loop, but if you use a servo motor with step/dir inputs the CONTROLLER needs to be closed loop. This was my point, so which CONTROLLERS provide closed loop step/dir signals.

Stepper motors can – if you’re lucky—work accurately and the feed rates are experimental!! This all seems a bit hit and miss. By contrast Servo motors are accurate, fast, and more powerful so why design a servo driver that will simulate a stepper motor???

[James Newton]

"Why design a servo driver that will simulate a stepper motor??"

How else will you hook your servo up to a system that is expecting a stepper?

There are many times when a better way of doing things is bypassed in favor of complying with a standard.

I sponsored the design of a stepper controller that used serial communications with the host and accepted "goto x,y,z" commands rather than step and direction. The controller then produced the stepper waveforms directly using a ramp for speed which results in much faster travel than you can get, reliably, from a windows or other non-deterministic OS. You can see it at
http://www.quickstepper.com Why isn't it selling like hotcakes? I can't seem to get anyone interested. It may be for other reasons, but as far as I can see, it's just too different, and I guess scary, for people to be willing to try it.

So I do the old Linistepper and that sells just fine. Even though it is open source!
http://www.piclist.com/io/stepper/linistep

[Mariss Freimanis]

Its the old "chicken or egg" thing. I have a very nice little circuit that uses a single wire for step and direction. I have a test drive (a modified G201) that runs very nicely using this interface with no technical drawbacks.

It has every advantage over the standard step / direction interface; only a single channel opto is needed, uses fewer components, easier to hook-up, more reliable, frees-up valuable PC port bits, etc, etc. I will never try to promote it, it is for my amusement only.

Why? Established interface standards. A drive mfg. would starve trying to sell them because there would be no CNC programs to drive it. CNC developers would never write an interface for it because there are no drives to use it with. Chicken or egg.

How does it work? Simple. A step pulse narrower than 2 uS is decoded as a CW step, a step pulse wider than 2 uS is decoded as a CCW step. Very simple to encode and decode at both ends.

I respect standards because they keep chaos at bay; drives and CNC programs speak a common 'language'. The downside of standards is their rigidity and ubiquity; it is very hard to introduce a new one unless the advantage is overwhelming. All in all it's not a bad thing.

Mariss

[SimonArthur]

James:
What does the Quickstepper allow one to do that a conventional setup doesn't?

[Vider]

Dear friends:

As I see there are two ways to do cnc with a servo + 1 (chickend or egg):

Stepper simulation: (As I will do in the next days)
one 8 bit counter driver by step/direction, and the servo-drive always following this counter, the simples way, one "red led" will alert if the counter owerflow or underflow (this is a signal that you are overdriving your servo). On most cnc programs like turbo cnc you will find "timers" to wait when the direction changes... better its if this program it is modified to wait a signal of the axis to say "ok",

Goto:
move comand like move x,y,z,a on the serial port is the better way (in my opinion), can be easy stacked on the micro, just butter if it include the rate of every axis, and the accel ramps, but must cnc programs i use does not do this (or i dont known how),

Regards