unidrive servo control with allen bradley plc

irondesk40

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Jan 2008
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Hope someone can give me some advice on how this can be done. My boss wants to take a unidrive servo drive controlling a servo motor that will be controlling a spray gun running back and forth over the top of fabric. This project was originally go to just be a simple ac drive controlling a linear slide with a glue gun attached and a prox switch on both ends to tell the drive to change direction.
Now,due to a smooth talking sales rep that came in to quote some linear slides it has now developed into a servo motor controlling the movement of the glue gun back and forth across the top of the fabric. The part that i am totally confused about is that they want to be able to tell the servo how wide the fabric is, for example 60 inches wide and then start the servo and it go back and forth enough in each direction to only spray over the 60 inch wide fabric. If on a hmi screen you tell the servo that the fabric is now 40 inches wide it then only travel back and forth enough to stay over the top of the fabric.
At the moment, have no idea how a micrologix 1400 plc can communicate with the Emerson Unidrive servo controller. I could see entering a value in the hmi to represent how wide the fabric is and doing the math determine how many pulses etc. the servo would need to run.
Any advice on how this is accomplished would be greatly appreciated.
Also, forgot to mention the sales rep also kept talking about how a redlion display that he also reps can communicate with the servo drive.
Have a big learning curve.
Thanks
 
sounds like the salesman is good at his job!! LOL
overkill comes to mind. a stepper would work just fine. however if your boss is willing to spend the money for the servo drive even better! If your going to use an hmi get the redlion it will help ease the pain as it can bridge the coms gap. I would also invite a good AB sales guy to visit your boss and sell him on a compact or control logix platform. Get what what you can while the gettings good!
 
You need to specify what options are being supplied with the Unidrive. First, i assume you mean an UnidriveSP. You must be running a fairly large motor or else they would have probably recommended a Digitax instead.

There are primarily two methods of motion control with a UnidriveSP. Either the CT sytle programming using an SM-Applications module or the Emerson style programming using an SM-EZMotion module. Depending on which you are using will make the details of the interface a little different.

Since either of those programming units are full fledged programmable controllers, the first question is would the ML1400 be of any value on this application. If the entire system is nothing more than what you mention above it would be much simpler just to let the drive control everything. If you look at it from that point of view, a Red Lion HMI, with a UniDriveSP and option module will almost certainly be less expensive than an AB HMI, ML1400, and PowerFlex VFD.

Emersont/CT sells HMI units called CTVue. Under the hood they are simply brand labeled Red Lion HMIs. It is very easy to get one of these communicating directly with any CT/Emerson unit. The Red Lion HMIs are pretty popular on this forum, and for good reason. They are very cost effective and capable with the added bonus of free software.

Since the UnidriveSP comes standard with an RS485 port, the least expensive method of interfacing with it is modbus RTU. If you choose to go that route you will need to make sure you choose an AB CPU that supports modbus. However, CT also supports practically every major fieldbus available. So you can also get an SM-Ethernet module and talk Ethernet/IP.

As always, the devils will be in the details. Providing exact part numbers can make it easier to give more specific advise.
 
Thanks
The plc is a micrologix 1400, it is used to control the actual operation of the machine. Yes, they have talked about a unidrive sp. Not exactly sure of any part numbers yet, at this point all I know is that the sales rep talked about the unidrive and a servo motor and kept on how easy it was to set up. The part that i am completely confused about at this point is how will the allen bradley 1400 communicate to the drive. From what was posted it appears that it may be done using the ethernet port on the plc. In my other projects I use the ethernet port on the plc to program it and also to program a hmi which on the last few projects I have done has been a maples hmi5043t. The maples connects to the plc using the serial connections on the display and plc.
I have Ntron ethernet module that the plc programming port and the hmi programming port are connected to so that I can connect to the Ntron with my PC and program or monitor.
Am i correct in assuming that the PLC, Redlion hmi will both connect to a ethernet port in a control panel and the unidrive will connect to the HMI and then you would use the plc to communicate to the Redlion.
Any advice at this point is greatly appriciated.
Thanks
 
Thanks
The plc is a micrologix 1400, it is used to control the actual operation of the machine. Yes, they have talked about a unidrive sp. Not exactly sure of any part numbers yet, at this point all I know is that the sales rep talked about the unidrive and a servo motor and kept on how easy it was to set up. The part that i am completely confused about at this point is how will the allen bradley 1400 communicate to the drive. From what was posted it appears that it may be done using the ethernet port on the plc. In my other projects I use the ethernet port on the plc to program it and also to program a hmi which on the last few projects I have done has been a maples hmi5043t. The maples connects to the plc using the serial connections on the display and plc.
I have Ntron ethernet module that the plc programming port and the hmi programming port are connected to so that I can connect to the Ntron with my PC and program or monitor.
Am i correct in assuming that the PLC, Redlion hmi will both connect to a ethernet port in a control panel and the unidrive will connect to the HMI and then you would use the plc to communicate to the Redlion.
Any advice at this point is greatly appriciated.
Thanks

As stated above, the solution will depend on exactly what you will have. If it is a UnidriveSP and you want to use Ethernet, you will want to make sure they add a SM-Ethernet module to the drive. Then you can just put all three on an EthernetIP network. Since the SM-Applications module supports Ethernet/IP there is no need to pass communication through the HMI. You will have to write your own messaging routines on the Micrologix side. If you used a Compact Logix you could save a lot of code and hassle since they support cyclical comms on the EIP.

Again as stated above, you can also just go Modbus direct from the ML1400 to the serial port of the drive.

I have done both of the above many times without issue.
 
Am i correct in assuming that the PLC, Redlion hmi will both connect to a ethernet port in a control panel and the unidrive will connect to the HMI and then you would use the plc to communicate to the Redlion.
That is one way of making this work. I would think that if you talk to the vendor he can walk you right through it.
 
There are many was to acomplish what you need and many different factors. Emerson can acomplish either stand alone or with 3 party controllers and ect. What I did was took a unidrive sp with a unimotor with a smresolver and resolver on the motor. More accurate. I used a delta motion controller to set up the axis. I use delta for Reliability and pretty straight fwd. took my resolver counts fed them back to the delta and used a simple add on card to the delta to read write outputs from the plc. Pretty simple have the plc tell the motion when and how much to move. Or as stated use the easy motion to do the same thing. and have the plc tell ezmotion when and how much to move. Probably the most economically way to go. I never used the ezmotion but emerson software is free.Depending on the salesmen they are just that salesmen their job is to sell. On that note dont make it more difficult than it needs to be. Try the ezmotion and just tell the drive when and how much to move and back home to start process again.
 
The Emerson HMI CTVUE(Red Lion G3) can talk to both the UniSp and the Micrologix. You would then need to set a Gateway block in the hmi to transfer a value from plc to drive (ex. N37:005 to 40001)
 
Thanks, I am suppose to meet sometime next week with a applications engineer from emerson, hopefully I will have a better understanding after that.
It will be micrologix not controllogix. We only have rslogix500, boss does not believe there is anything out there we can not do with a micrologix or slc plc.
If someone could possibly post a sample plc program that may have done this with a unidrive sp servo that would be greatly appreciated.
I am still not sure how to enter a value in the hmi and the servo start and run that distance and then come back to home and if you change that value in the hmi then the undrive sp servo go that distance now.
I have done some servo projects using the yaskawa servo units, that involved using the yaskawa software and programming in a move profile in the yaskawa and then using a omron plc on that project sending a run signal to the festo servo and it run that profile. The move distance etc. was always constant. It was a robotic head that picked up a package and moved it to another position and then dropped it and returned back to home position and made a sensor that the plc used to know to pick up another package and yaskawa servo perform the same operation. This application involves the servo moving different distances that are entered into the hmi.
Hate to keep asking, but any real world samples would be greatly appreciated. Myself, I can take something like that and study and pick up more better than someone just saying you can do it with ethernet or with modbus.
Thanks
 
Your program should be very simple for the applications engineer to show you.

You will have very little programming for the application you described, and the most difficult thing about setting one of these up, is figuring out the modbus addresses to use (RS-485)
 
Unidrive SP comunication SLC 500 or micrologix

Hello, I need a drive Unidrive SP comunicacar (with SM-Ethernet and SM-EZmotion) with a SLC500 or MicroLogix plc. I have already done this, but with a Controllogix.
Thank you.
 

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