Unidrive M-series and machine control studio

Does anyone have any experience on these M-series drives by control techniques? I'm struggling to figure out how can I read onboard I/O statuses in my onboard PLC program. All tips and hints are highly appreciated.

You need to add a Module that is compatable with your Type of PLC Communications. I know the M-200 did not come with the standard rs-485 port you had to purchase the AI-485 add on card. We added a SI-Profinet card for control and feedback.

I'm playing with M600 and it has the standard RS485 port plus some I/O already attached to it. What I'm trying to do is to control two different kinds of motors with the same drive and I would like to change the parameter sets by toggling one of the inputs with a switch for example.

Yes the M600 does have the RS485 I think they not add to the m200 to keep initial cost down. You set your motor 2 Parameters in Menu 21. And assign where you want the parameters to point to. AI /Preset would give you one reference when you have the run command AI being first by default. And your Preset speed or motor two when your digital I/O is assigned. You just point the parameters to what you want to accomplish. Two Drives or two speeds Use a Isolation Contactor and have your PLC toggle which one.I have a test unit set up and will update of which parameters actually toggles it from motor one to motor two.

Ok, just to make sure I got this right. If I map one of the inputs as Pr 11.045 (Select motor 2 parameters) and then toggle this input I should be able to switch the parameters depending on which motor I want to use? I got all confused because one expert said that he would save the parameter files on a NV media card and then upload the parameter set when a certain input is toggled.

You are correct Setting Parameter 11.045 to a 1 or this is done easier with a commination card.. Profinet ect..you wound then have your digital I/O so your e stop circuit closed then two other circuit on 1 digital I/O so one opens then closes another to switch motors. I don't know about the logic stick never used them. Maybe that is what he is talking about having the I/O switch user programs with the logic stick. I have my drive guy giving me a call to tell me the exact way how to accomplish this scenario since the CTAN 344 does not cover this scenario. It seams straight forward but when switching between parameters you need to have another parameter do something else. Ran into that many times. so when in doubt I as my drive supplier he is pretty good with these. I did a Profinet setup a while back and the way I had it run worked and the way I had the parameters set One of the Engineers at Emerson said it was not how it was intended and thus never tested. So it was wrong. I had to use control words to do the same I had I/O doing. I asked where was the white paper on how to do this and he said there isn't any a lot is a guessing game. Find yourself a good supplier with good technical experience it really helps. Look under the Application notes in documentation it has tech references which can be of some help. I don't see any for the M series yet but the SK or Menu structure is the same.
http://www.controltechniques.com/CTDownloads/SharePoint/DownloadFile.aspx?DownloadID=1578&SiteID=4

Just assign 11.045 to a digital input like I/O5 (instead of Local/Remote). Now when you apply power to I/O5 (after the drive has been disabled), the second set of motor parameters will be used. Now enable the drive again and apply the same ol’ run command you used the first time.


You Can Use the Aux Contact on your contactor to toggle this bit would probable be the easiest to switch between parameters and motors and use the same run command to keep it simple.

Makes perfectly sense, thank you very much.