Hi,
the Clearpath SDSK is made to be as SIMPLE as possible to catch buyers whom want servos but are only familiar with steppers.
The servos need only the same number of wires as a stepper. You need a pos and neg supply, and capable of 10A or 20A so need to be reasonable size.
You'll need one step wire, one direction wire, and one return wire, say 0V or 5V to 24V depending on your controller. These wire are signals only so little wires,
#22 or #24 would be fine. That would be enough to get the servo going if you program it so. Its common, not essential, but recommended to have one additional wire,
an ENABLE, and a #22 or #24 signal wire would be ample. This wire basically turns the servo ON or OFF. You might use it to disable the servo if the machine EStops say.
Another good idea is to have a HLFB wire, #22 or #24. You can program the servo to output a condition, for instance an overload or overheat condition. You could use this to
EStop the machine. Another possibility is to program it as a 'Following Error'. If the servo lags too far behind the commanded position it will fault, a bit like a stepper
when it misses steps. The servo will recognise the lost steps and if it can't keep up it will stop. You can use HLFB to signal that event and use it to Estop, or pause the machine
rather than carry on making an out-of-shape part.
One of the definite shortcomings of Clearpath servos is that they only have one HLFB output. So you could not have an overload output AND a Following Error output, but only
one or the other. My Delta B2 series servos have SIX digital outputs, so I can have Following Error AND Overload AND Overheat outputs. My controller can respond in different
ways to the different fault conditions. Clearpath reduced the outputs to just one in interests of simplicity....shame really.
Craig
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