I need my Smartmotor to do a simple one-off programmed movement. Contoured mode looks like the ideal way to go. I have some questions:
Where is the G-code interface that is mentioned in the user guide?
I don't need to be sending time and position values as the motor is moving. Can I just stack up a series of time / position pairs and issue a G command, then have the program send Q commands and wait until byte 1 bit 7 goes to zero?
The section on contour mode says that to end the move at rest one should send two identical time values. Surely it would make more sense to send two identical position values which would mean "remain in position", then send a command such as OFF to exit contour mode?
If I want the motor to start on one side of the position origin and end on the other, how do I define a "negative" position? As a 4-byte 2's complement number?
Edit:
OK, I realised why you don't send identical positions to end contour mode - you might want to have a section in the trajectory where the motor is stationary but you don't necessarily want it to drop out of contour mode.
Are you only needing one repeated simple move all the time? If so, you can use CAM mode, download the path using the Cam import tool in SMI and run off of the internal clock (SRC(2)) . This applies to class 5 only. You can actually store a lot of Cam profiles and even modify them on the fly. I would suggest contacting us directly if oyu are planning on using a PC hist program in contouring mode. The SMI engine (integmotorinterface.dll) is meant for that and examples are in your animatics sub directories with full source code.
Additionally as a side note, Cam tables can be run in spline mode to give very smooth motion. They can be scaled in both amplitude and frequency on the fly as well.
We have SMNC as a G-code software package for running motors directly form a PC.
No, I need a single multi-stage motion with 2 different velocities. It will have the general form:
Start at P1, V=0
Accelerate to P(1), V(1)
Move to P(2) at V(1)
Acc/decelerate to P(3), V(2)
Move to P(4) at V(2)
Acc/decelerate to P(5), V(1)
Move to P(6) at V(1)
Decelerate to P(7), V=0
Where P(1-7) are successive positions and V(1-2) are the two velocities. All these are defined by the host program and may be different every time.
Cam mode seems to be designed to produce repetitive motion, I can't see any facility to stop the motion after one cam cycle. Also it looks like the time points in cam mode must be regular intervals, whereas I want them to be flexible. I could get around that by using a large array of points but that means a lot of data has to be communicated every time.