Advanced Motion Controls

Digiflex^® DriveSuite v. 3.1.3 Release Notes

11/21/03

Digiflex^® DriveSuite is free software for use in commissioning and setup of Advanced Motion Controls Digiflex^® digital drives.  DriveSuite provides the ability to set drive limits, tune the current, velocity, and position control loops, and assign automated functions to drive events.  The fully functional eight-channel oscilloscope eases system setup and assessment.

Documentation and support are available on the Advanced Motion Controls web site (www.a-m-c.com), or contact Technical Support by phone at 805-389-1935 or by e-mail to techsupport@a-m-c.com.

Select from the following:

System Requirements

Added Features

Known Issues

Firmware Compatibility

Requirements

1. Windows operating system (Win 3.x, 95, 98 NT, 2000, XP)

2. 9MB hard drive space

3. Available COM port (COM 1, 2, 3, or 4)

4. SynqNet™ Interface Card (for DQ111 Series)

Added Features:

1. Position Loop Control commanded via Step and Direction, Encoder Following (Electronic Gearing), Analog Input, or serial communications interface. Control via PID with Velocity and Acceleration Feedforward gains.

2. High speed digital inputs for use as Step and Direction and Encoder Following command inputs.

3. Command Profiling of the current, velocity, or position commands allows for ramping of a step input or limiting rate of change of command input.  For current loop (torque) commands, independently control the maximum rate of change of current for either a positive or negative sloping current profile.  Velocity mode Command Profiling provides the ability to control four separate acceleration rates - positive velocity acceleration, positive velocity deceleration, negative velocity acceleration, and negative velocity deceleration.  Profiling of the Position commands creates velocity control for step position changes.  Independent position command profiling can be applied for changes in either the positive or negative directions.

4. SynqNet Phase II support, including the SynqNet service channel.  Allows operation of DriveSuite setup software via SynqNet to any Digiflex node on the network (Model dependant).

5. Firmware upgrade via SynqNet to any Digiflex node on the network (model dependant).

6. Expanded Digital Oscilloscope with up to eight channels displayed (signal dependant).

7. Internal 1Vp-p sin/cos encoder interpolation.  Selectable up to 512 times interpolation for position feedback, pre-quadrature.  Allows up to 2,048 encoder counts per line. (Model dependant)

8. Heidenhain EnDAT, Stegmann Hiperface, and Gurley serial communications support for startup indication of absolute position (Model dependant).

9. Automated Power-up functions, including Phase Detect and Load Measured Position.

10. Logarithmic gain slider bars for position and velocity loop gains.

11. 32-bit Proportional gain for velocity loop control, which allows for velocity loop tuning of direct drive of high inertial loads.

12. Programmable Disable Hot key for one-touch disable of the power bridge via the keyboard.

13. Fault Activity Log with time stamp indication to trace internal fault history of the drive.

14. Phase Detect Button to activate the Phase Detect function from within the DriveSuite setup software.

Known Issues

DriveSuite:

1. Analog Input scaling for velocity commands is 25% of the indicated value on the Analog Input scaling window.  As a workaround, enter a value into Analog Input scaling that is four times the desired scaling (e.g. enter 4000 rpm/V if desired scaling is 1000 rpm/V).

2. If the Phase Detect button is active within DriveSuite when connecting to a drive, the Phase Detect function will be executed immediately upon connecting.

3. When clicking and dragging the Waveform Generator Offset slider for a Position Loop command, the smallest position command increment is 11 million counts.

4. When starting a triangle waveform from the Waveform Generator in Position Mode, the first Target Position change is a step change to the negative peak value. 

5. Current or Velocity Limits can be set higher than that shown in Motor Data if the values in Motor Data are changed to values lower than those in General Drive Configuration and the parameters are not stored to nonvolatile memory.

6. Following a firmware upgrade from previous versions, there may not be text shown on the Velocity Loop button.  To enable the text on this button, enable and subsequently disable the velocity loop.

7. Launching DriveSuite by double clicking any project file from a location other than the DriveSuite\My Projects directory will not load all parameters.  DriveSuite project files should be opened by selecting File à Open.

8. Scaling for Encoder Following mode cannot be set to a negative value.  To change the direction of the Encoder Following command, swap the Auxiliary Encoder A and B wires.

 All Hardware Models:

1. With the Position Loop enabled, repeatedly applying Phase Detect can lock the drive in a disabled state.  Cycle power to the drive to recover from this condition.

DQ111 Series Hardware:

1. For DQ111SE... models, changing the Interpolation value for Position Feedback requires execution of Phase Detect to reacquire commutation.

Firmware Compatibility:

Advanced Motion Controls

3805 Calle Tecate

Camarillo, CA 93012

Phone: 805-389-1935

Fax: 805-389-1165