Yaskawa enters the 1.5-axis motion market

Yaskawa has launched a 1.5-axis motion controller that it claims is particularly easy to program and operate. The MP940 controller is designed to be used with the company`s Sigma II family of servo drives and motors.

Unveiling the controller at the Drives & Controls show, Yaskawa`s UK sales manager Mark Butters, admitted that while Yaskawa had a good reputation in the servo, servomotor and inverter markets, it was "not strong in the design and usability of motion controllers".

The MP940 is intended to plug this gap. The controller plugs into a Sigma II drive and can be retrofitted to existing installations. It supports camming, electronic gearing and print registration applications.

The MP940 is the first Yaskawa product to be developed simultaneously in Japan and the US. The Japanese worked on the hardware, while the Americans supplied the icon-based MotionWorks programming software. The controller has PLC-like functions. "It won`t replace PLCs," Butters concedes, "but it has logic capabilities that do not slow down the motion".