Siemens POSMO integrated servos ?

I have a project where I'm being asked to provide an expansion to a system that uses Siemens Posmo integrated servo+motor drives. The application is very simple: it's a bunch of independent linear indexing mechanisms, so there's no coordinated motion. The PLC involved is an S7-317.

My understanding is that these were introduced 10+ years ago, and were a 48V DC servo that was commanded over Profibus DP like an ordinary cyclic I/O device.

I'm considering replacing the S7-317 controller that runs them now with a ControlLogix that uses several EtherNet/IP to Profibus DP gateways. There are some good reasons for this approach that involve modularity for robustness and performance, integration with nearby systems, and future expansion and upgrades.

My general questions are:

Does anyone in the PLCTalk community have experience with these ?

Do you know if they're still available in the USA ?

Were they parameterized via Step7 and the S7-300, or did you connect to them with Simotion SCOUT or some other software over a serial connection to configure them ?

I've read some documentation that shows using the POSMO controllers with a C2xx family SIMOTION drive controller and SCOUT, and some that describe using them with Step 7, but I'm very interested in whether they can really be used as standalone devices.

I was searching the Siemens website to see if this product description matched something I used in the past (it wasn't) and ran into some information walls. Looks like it was a standalone similar to the ultra 5000 but controller was integrated with the motor? 24v to 600v versions?

Does your customer want to continue with a product that is being discontinued? Since June of last year. Prevailing recommendation here has been to avoid that scenario.

Ken
Heres the scoop...
There were two types of Posmo A
- 75 watt 24 vdc
- 300 watt 48 vdc
(various gearboxes too)
Both mature products.

Both are programmed with SimoCom A software- over profibus
(which is the only way to set these drives up)
SimoCom A could be integrated (software) with Step7 using a package called DriveES.
Or used stand alone

As far as using stand alone..
Somewhat you can.. the Posmo A has some built in I/O and you can set up traversing tasks..etc
But changing speed, position setpoints.. etc has to be done by a profibus master or SimoCom A software



Theres a library of control function blocks for Posmo A. These are used with S7300/400 or WinAC
These blocks can do speed control,position control or read/write parameters

Hope this helps
(if you need manuals etc..let me know)

The replacement for this motor/drive is S120M
A totally different setup etc

Thanks very much, guys ! At this morning's bidder's conference, the other vendors were a little surprised when I slapped on a head lamp and crawled into the debris under the machine to get the part numbers off the servos.

These are the 48V DC drives, 300 watt. Turns out there are 120 of them connected in daisy-chain groups connected with eight Turck DP/DP repeaters. There are two channels on the S7-317-2DP so they have plenty of Profibus node numbers available.

Thanks for the info about the software that programmed them and how it integrated into S7. Simotion Scout is my only Siemens motion control experience so I'd have to procure and learn SimoCom A.

JRW, when you hooked up a computer to Profibus to configure these drives, were you physically connected to Profibus DP along with the PLC scanner (like with a PCMCIA card) or did you connect to the PLC via Ethernet (there's a CP343-1) and "pass through" it ?

Ken
Simocom A is a free download.
I have connected to the Posmo's both ways, through Step 7 "routing" and direct on profibus
I've never tried it through a dp/dp coupler
If you do this retrofit, be sure to study the profibus ppo telegram for the posmo.
You will need to be good at pkw and pzd data

https://support.industry.siemens.com/cs/document/49345061/simocoma-version-v5-05-01?dti=0&lc=en-US

A year later and this project is finally getting underway.

I ended up purchasing a Hilscher NT50-MPI standalone Ethernet/Profibus DP gateway device.

There's a lot that goes into setting one of these things up. There's an IP driver from Hilscher, and a SyCON Basic (not SyCON.net) configuration utility, and a PC/PG driver from IBH Softec.

But the hard part was convincing SIMOCOM A software to use the driver. After nearly two days of maddening "PROFIBUS ERROR" messages after every "connect" attempt, I discovered that the "Access Point" should be "S7ONLINE", which is similar to Step7.

The default Access Point is CP_L2_1, which is generally used for network access by SIMATIC NET. You also don't use the WinCC standard MPI Access Point.

But now that I've got it, I can get deeper into the multi-master settings and the various data blocks that are involved in this servo.

Once I get it all working, I plan to contribute it to the IBH Softec Wiki.

Thanks (belatedly) for the help !