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Controller offers ‘shortest move and settle times’
Published:  12 August, 2013

The Israeli motion controls manufacturer ACS Motion Control has developed a combined control module and EtherCat master which, it claims delivers “ultimate servo performance, the shortest move and settle times possible, minimal jitter, and outstanding smoothness”.

The SPiiPlusCMhp/ba module is aimed at advanced machines with two- or three-axis motion stages, such as those used for manufacturing and inspecting wafers and flat panels, laser cutting, printing, medical imaging, and industrial servo-driven material pullers and cutters.

As an EtherCat network master, the module can control and synchronise up to 32 axes and thousands of I/O. The open EtherCat architecture operates in conjunction with ACS servo and stepper motor drives and I/O modules. It can also be used with any certified EtherCat module that complies with the Can-over-EtherCat (CoE) protocol.

The module has three built-in drives, with ratings from 1–5kW. ACS says it provides economical, yet high-performance, compact, scalable and distributed control. It offers a 20kHz sampling rate and incorporates incremental and absolute encoder interfaces.

ACS's combined control module and EtherCat master can synchronise up to 32 axes

The module is supported by ACS’ SPiiPlusNT Suite application development studio for network setup, drive configuration, tuning, and multi-axis application programming. The suite includes a PC-based controller simulator that cuts costs of ownership and time-to-market for OEMs, system integrators and end-users.