Hello

Beginner so i appreciate all kind of help!

I have jut bought a Rover 23 that have Yaskawa servopack SGDB-15VN. Is there anyone on the forum that has succesfully been able to drive this servos with Mach3? I really don't know where to start.

Manual can be found here


https://www.dropbox.com/s/jekk0fyn48x5r5c/Sigma%20SGDB%20User%27s%20Manual%28E%29.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z1mrig210fvfm9j/toe-s616-10.21b_3_0c20yecf20version.pdf?dl=0

Hi,
Yaskawa is a superb brand.

Mach3 and Mach4 are natively step/direction controllers. That is they produce one signal (direction) to indicate
to the servodrive which direction the servo is to turn and the other (step) is how many steps it should take.
The number or steps to complete one rotation is determined in part by the encoder fitted to the servo and
other settings like 'electronic gear ratio'.

Modern servo drives can operate in a number of different modes.

1) Analogue....a voltage produced by the controller/motion controller is translated into rotational speed (speed mode)
   or a torque (torque mode). Positional feedback (encoder or resolver) is directed to the motion control which 'closes' the position loop.
   Mach3 and Mach4 can do this BUT ONLY with specialized and expensive motion control boards. Servo manufacturers include
   analogue control so that it could be used as a replacement for older equipment. Good performance can be had but it is expensive
   and complicated....unless you have a particular need don't do it.
2)Pulse or other various names like step/direction, CW/CCW, quadrature. This is a virtually industry standard on all modern servo
   drives and is highly applicable to Mach3 and Mach4 with modestly priced step/direction motion control boards or even
   Machs humble parallel port.
3)Bus Mode. There are a number of communication protocols used by servo manufacturers to enact 'distributed motion control'
   Yaskawa is particularly strong in Ethercat. You will hear other names like CANOpen, Profibus, Profinet and various other
   proprietary schemes. Distributed motion control is highly applicable to industrial control situations where tens or hundreds
  of servos and other devices have to work in concert. The reason I mention this mode is because looking at the pictures
  you have posted the big communication cables, one in and one out, could well be Ethercat cables.

You need to establish what control method has been used. It is common for a servo drive to be equipped to operate in all modes
I outlined above. So despite your machine being wired/configured for Ethercat currently you could re-program the drives
to be step/direction say.

There is a possibility however that the servo drive can ONLY operate in ONE, usually Bus Mode, in which case your
Ethercat drives CAN ONLY be operated as Ethercat drives.

As a first step determine how your machine is controlled currently. Then you need to determine if it could be configured
to operate in step/direction mode.

Craig

Thanks for good explanation!

So in my head right now, does is work something like this?


Stepper motor
Mach 3 tells card to send for example 80 pulses (5v?) to the encoder an each puls rotates one value of degree. Mach 3 remembers how many pulses it has send and can calculate the position of the steppermotor. And of course also calculate the position, I get that.

Servo motor

Mach 3 tells card to send 1-10v to the encoder and the voltage represent a speed? The servodriver returns pulses to mach 3, telling the position of the servoengine? Then I guess some extra card is needed to control the process?

I think I have AC-servos and all connectors are connected. The "Profibus" cable is connected to the current motioncard

Hi,

Stepper motor
Mach 3 tells card to send for example 80 pulses (5v?) to the encoder an each puls rotates one value of degree. Mach 3 remembers how many pulses it has send and can calculate the position of the steppermotor. And of course also calculate the position, I get that.

This is close to correct, this is a bit confusing: "pulses (5v?) to the encoder an each puls rotates one value of degree". The pulse is
sent to the stepper drive.....not the encoder.....in fact steppers don't have encoders.

Servo motor

Mach 3 tells card to send 1-10v to the encoder and the voltage represent a speed? The servodriver returns pulses to mach 3, telling the position of the servoengine? Then I guess some extra card is needed to control the process?

That is true for old school analogue servo drives. That extra card that converts Machs step/direction commands and monitors
the servo encoder is required and expensive. You don't need it.

I think I have AC-servos and all connectors are connected. The "Profibus" cable is connected to the current motioncard

Are you sure that its Profibus?. Yaskawa is strongly committed to Ethercat and was not aware that they ever produced a Profibus
capable servo drive.

Even if it is Profibus or Ethercat what you need to determine is if you can change the mode of operation to step/direction
which is native to Mach. I would guess it is possible. Some manufacturers produced servo drives that could ONLY be
operated in the manufacturers preferred bus communication protocol, Ethercat in the case of Yaskawa, but the norm is to
have the servo drive be bus AND step/direction AND analogue voltage input capable for maximum market
appeal. If that is the case then you can remode your servo drives to step/direction and use Mach (3 or 4) and a step/direction
buffered motion controller like the ESS, the UC300 or if you want real cheap Mach3's humble parallel port.

Craig

Thanks!

Acoording to the manual, it should work. But I guess I need to buy a UC300 t be a able to start testing.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ycyvp08xf22v0yj/TSE-S800-16E%20%281%29.pdf?dl=0

Hi,
yes that certainly does indicate a step/direction control mode.

Is there programming software for the drive?. If so can you download it and connect to the servo drives?

You will need a motion controller. Mach's parallel port IS A MOTION CONTROLLER that just happens
to run on the same PC as the Mach3 application. It is a reasonable choice. You must use a Windows 7 32 bit
or earlier OS, and the PC MUST be kept free of unnecessary software or the parallel port still stutter or stall.

An external motion controller like a UC300 or an Ethernet SmoothStepper relieves the PC of the duty of moption control
and can therefore use an 64 bit OS including Windows 10.

I would commend you to consider Mach4 as applicable to a new build, all development of Mach3 stopped six years ago.
If you do decide to use Mach4 then the Ethernet SmoothStepper has a very much more advanced realtime support
feature list that the UC300 does not have.

Craig