EasySlave allows easy development of Sercos Slave Devices

Sercos International (www.sercos.com), has proudly introduced the Sercos EasySlave, which is an FPGA-based single-chip controller ideally suited for simple Sercos III slave devices, at the recently concluded SPS/IPC Show in Nuremberg, Germany.

Featuring a real time channel with a single input and output connection, the EasySlave can support cycle times as low as 31.25 usec.

Meanwhile, an IP core serves as a netlist for the Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA family. The core contains all of the Sercos slave connection’s functions, including the related software library for I/O devices.

“Sercos EasySlave can be integrated in an application with minimal effort in order to achieve various I/O activations,” said Peter Lutz, Managing Director of Sercos International.

EasySlave’s technical support is provided bySteinbeisTransferCenterfor Systems Technology (TZS). In addition, TZS provides an EasySlave evaluation kit that offers customers an easy and quick introduction to the Sercos slave development. The kit comes with a development board based on a Xilinx Spartan-6 XC6SLX9 FPGA. Using plug-in modules, the evaluation kit, which includes all other required documents and materials (power supply, Ethernet cable and documentation), can also be extended.

“The EasySlave evaluation kit makes Sercos III slave development easy. Steinbeis-TZS will be happy to provide assistance in the integration and commissioning of EasySlave,” noted Professor Reinhard Keller of Steinbeis-TZS.

Sercos International offers various EasySlave licensing models. Aside from the special prizes provided to Sercos member companies, a license-free bitstream IP core version with a limited functionality is also offered, under the product name EasySlave-IO.

Rockwell’s Ultra 3000 Family

Rockwell Automation, Inc. (www.ab.com) has unveiled the new Ultra3000 family that provides solution through its complete set of servo drives, which range from simple standalone index applications to multi-axis integrated motion. Ranging between 110V and 460V power input, these digital servo drives conform to global voltage requirements and offer flexibility to perform in several machine control architectures. Moreover, the Ultra3000 drive is embedded with ControlLogix platform through SERCOS interface for integrated motion. The integrated Ultra3000i digital servo drive with indexing provides basic stand-alone control capability to the feature set of Ultra3000.

The Ultra3000 family is available from 7.5A to 150A peak current in the 230V platform and 14A to 94A peak current in the 460V platform. Moreover, all power sizes are currently available with indexing. DeviceNet networking and SERCOS interface options.

The Ultra3000 offers simple integration into the Allen-Bradley machine control architectures and accepts step/direction, analog 0V to 10V and master follower command sources, along with DeviceNet connectivity and SERCOS interface across the Ultra3000 family. For multi-axis integrated motion (Kinetix), the SERCOS interface provides integration into the ControlLogix platform. The RSLogix 5000 is the only computer program required for both motion and sequential control. Optimized drive/motor combinations are now available for every application. The Ultra3000 can run several brushless servo motors, such as the Allen-Bradley LD-, Y-, H-, N-, W- and F-series and 1326AB motors with third-party and linear motors.

The Ultra3000 features 100V to 480V AC options, with single and three-phase input. It also has 7.5A to 150A peak current capability, as well as standard D-Shell connectors. It features flash memory firmware storage, seven segment LED, four selectable general purpose outputs and eight selectable general purpose inputs.