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Hardware reference : Motors : Advanced Control System : Advanced Control System MCU-2

Advanced Control System MCU-2

Interface:

Serial

config file

RS_MCU = device_name baud_rate number_of_motors

edconf: DEVICES screen

 MOTORS        DEVICE   ADDR  <>MODE  NUM                               <>TYPE 
    YES    /dev/tty00     <>    9600   12          Advanced Control System MCU

On the Motors screen of the configuration editor, one can select among MCU , MCU_E , MCU_H and MCU_O for the controller type.

The MCU_O controller type indicates that the controllers have the old-style firmware (which doesn't implement the # start character for message sent to the controllers), so that spec will not test first for the new-style firmware, thus avoiding timeouts.

The MCU_H controller type is for a special version of the controller which includes a hardware tie-in for a Heidenhain encoder. For such controllers, the motor_par("encoder_step_size") parameter is relevant in order to set the ratio between the Heidenhain encoder readings and the MCU-2 step size. The default value is 131072 / 360.

The MCU_E type indicates an encoder is used. However, currently, there is no difference in the software whether MCU_E or MCU is selected.

Please note, many users have had problems establishing initial communication between the MCU-2 controllers and their computers. The problem is almost always related to the cable. Standard RS-232C cables do not appear to work. A custom cable wired according to the diagram in the MCU-2 manual seems to be needed. Note also, that the connections for pins 2 and 3 may need to be swapped from what is shown in the manual. Be prepared to try the cable both ways before adding the final touches.

Function Reference:

motor_par(motor, "send", cmd_string): Sends the stirng cmd_string to the MCU channel associated with motor . For example, set cmd_string to "J500" to set the jog rate for motor to 500 steps per second.

motor_par(motor, "read", cmd_string): Sends the string cmd_string to the MCU channel associated with motor , as above, and returns a string containing the response.

motor_par(motor, "encoder_position"): For the special version controllers with the hardware tie-in to a Heidenhain encoder, reads and returns the current encoder position.

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