Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Pearson, Matthew R." <[email protected]> · Thu, 14 Jun 2018 18:09:44 +0000

Hi,

There is some interest at the SNS in using ethernet attached stepper motors for easy integration with modular ad-hoc motion projects. For example:

https://www.arcus-technology.com/products/integrated-stepper-motors/nema-23-integrated-ethernet-stepper-2/
https://www.omega.com/pptst/STM_SERIES.html

I found this brief tech-talk chain:
https://epics.anl.gov/tech-talk/2015/msg00736.php

I am wondering if anyone is using these and has any recommendations?

The Arcus drives seem easy to use (ASCII command set over TCP/IP). Although they have a very complex factory reset procedure. There’s seems to be an EPICS driver for one of the Arcus multi-axis controllers.

The advantages of these would seem to be lower cost and fewer cables. Although to wire in limits switches would still need cabling work, and there’s still an external power supply required.

The main disadvantage is that it’s a new unknown controller type, and we already use several other controllers that can drive stepper motors. Instead, I am wondering if it’s worth fabricating a portable single axis box out of our standard motion controller (which for this case would be a single axis Galil controller).

Cheers,
Matt

Data Acquisition and Controls Engineer
Spallation Neutron Source
Oak Ridge National Lab

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System