Can we use AB PLC with other brand of servo?

Hi guys,

I need your advise, our customer requirement is to use AB PLC for a new machine/project. I was wondering if the AB PLC (MLX or SLC) can work together with other brand of servo controller & motor like Yaskawa, etc..? If yes, what would be the correct module?

Thanks a lot.

The Controllogix platform has a motion control module that connects to a servo amplifier using the most common electrical connections. Then your motion control is inside the PLC.

Your servo amp must be able to work with the signals it provides.

http://raise.rockwellautomation.com/RAConfig/resultsComponents.asp?CID=03CF09CAB2F849299BAC4D1BDB1184AE

Also, there's a compactlogix controller from AB that supports the SERCOS interface.

If your Yaskawa drive handles it's own motion control and just needs discrete signals to operate, then any micro plc will do it. If it needs to communicate at a higher level, you'll have to give more detail on what you need.

OkiePC said:

The Controllogix platform has a motion control module that connects to a servo amplifier using the most common electrical connections. Then your motion control is inside the PLC.

Your servo amp must be able to work with the signals it provides.

http://raise.rockwellautomation.com/RAConfig/resultsComponents.asp?CID=03CF09CAB2F849299BAC4D1BDB1184AE

Also, there's a compactlogix controller from AB that supports the SERCOS interface.

If your Yaskawa drive handles it's own motion control and just needs discrete signals to operate, then any micro plc will do it. If it needs to communicate at a higher level, you'll have to give more detail on what you need.

Click to expand...

We can't put in CLX or Compact Logix as the cost is too high, the system operation might just need less than 10 IO points, so maximum we can spec in is SLC, better still if MLX can do the job.

The operator will set (using HMI or SCADA), the location (height) of the hydraulic pump. The hydraulic pump & mounting is heavy.

1) The servo motor is to control the up down of the hydraulic pump. It's operating in slow speed.

2) Other than servo, I was thinking if we can use inverter (c/w braking), for this application so that we can save some cost.

Absolutely...Although the setup may not be as straight forward. Keeping it to the same mfg could make your work possibly alot easier if you don't know how to match the components correctly.

I guess that is why you are asking these questions.

You would have to evaluate what kind of servo drive you are going to use. How much functionality and control does it have. This would help you decide what module to use and how exactly to control (interface to) the servo drive.

Something that I have done alot in the past is use an analog motion module on a CLX processor and a dumb (no real intelligence required) servo drive.

This would make the servo drive and motor pretty much generic to the motion module since the drive is being used as a torque/current drive. The motion module would close the position and velocity loop and just send torque/current commands (+/- 10V) to the drive of your choice. The drive would convert these commands to current to drive the motor.

I would still recommend keeping the drive and motor of the same brand.

Why not use the hydraulics for position control?

After reading your second post, I see that you have some restrictions. I have a couple of questions...

Does the location (height) of the pump need to be random heights or are there just a predetermined number of positons? And if so, how many positions?

Based on your HP/Torque requirements, what size motor are we looking at?

What is the budget you have to work with?

Is the Yaskawa servo drive a positioner, or does it require an external one?

By that I mean, does it store the positions and you just call them up with relay contact closure?

And, if it does the positioning, and you need to change those positions, how does it communicate? Can you write your new position to it with the PLC communication channel?

Find out all you can about the Yaskawa communications...

flyers said:

Hi guys,

I need your advise, our customer requirement is to use AB PLC for a new machine/project. I was wondering if the AB PLC (MLX or SLC) can work together with other brand of servo controller & motor like Yaskawa, etc..? If yes, what would be the correct module?

Thanks a lot.

Click to expand...

This controller can talk to the PLC using DF1 and control the drive with a +/- 10 volt command
http://www.deltamotion.com/products/motion/rmc70/cpu75s.php
Note, it is more powerful than the micrologix itself so unless a lot of I/O is required you may not need the PLC at all.

The design is not the way I would do it. I was recently at a site where we controlled four Yaskawa drives and motors drive Exlar mechanical cylinders. It worked very well and was easy to set up.

If you insist on SLC platform then use this module

http://raise.rockwellautomation.com/RAConfig/resultsComponents.asp?CID=B79DD5AA6E024257A7952CD4694B16AC

personally I find the clx platform much easier to use and the SLC card a pain to configure

It looks to me that we are back to the design budget trade off again
Want High acceleration, high speed, highly accurate positioning ( +/- 3 encoder counts) - SERVO ( eg high cycle rates and small movements)
want reasonable speed with reasonable positioning accuracy (+/- 100 counts) and move time is a low % of machine cycle time - Variable speed drive (closed loop vector control) with high speed counter card is possible, other methods also exist eg Comms to onboard single axis drive positioning units


Want coordinated motion on two or more axis - in my opinion use a dedicated motion controller - CLX on sercos or Peter Nachtwey's product Deltamotion

dam got to learn to type quicker!