Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Pearson, MR (Matthew)" <[email protected]> · Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:19:54 +0100

Hi,

I'd like to find out how many sites are using the Newport XPS 8-axis
motion controller. At Diamond we have at least 10 of these controllers,
on different beamlines, used mainly for diffractometers.

We have been having some operational problems with them, and I'd like to
find out if anyone else has had the same problems and if there was a
solution. 

The problems are:

1) Controllers 'resetting' themselves, and putting all axes into state 2
(uninitialized due to an emergency stop). There tends to be a 'General
Inhibition' error on all axes in this case. The controller does not
reboot. This has happened several times recently on different beamlines.
It has happened during the day and night, when the controller was in use
and when not in use. It happened once during a homing procedure.

2) Webserver crashing. The webserver task seems to be suspended. In the
past I have observed this to happen when the controller configuration is
incorrect (for example, unplugging a motor and then rebooting - the
webserver can fail to work). But it can happen at any time, when no
configuration change has taken place.

Often the EPICS driver continues to work in this case, and we can use a
home-grown Python application to talk to the controller. So it really is
just the webserver having a problem.

3) Webserver displaying incorrect information. Often the main control
webpage can display the incorrect axis state, and can be observed to
alternate between states on a seemingly random basis.

Problem 1) is the most serious, and we are in the process of installing
power supply monitoring equipment on one beamline, on the advice of
Newport. However, the PSU is already well regulated.

Has anyone else had similar issues with the Newport XPS?

We're running various versions of XPS firmware on beamlines. Mainly
2.1.X, 2.3.X and 2.4.0. In all the controllers we have various
selections of amplifier cards, but mainly DRV01 and DRV03. Most of the
controllers tend to be almost fully populated with amplifier cards, and
are installed in racks in air conditioned rooms.

Regards,
Matthew

DLS Controls
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Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System