Laminar Workflow (Customer) asked a question.
LS Electric EtherCAT to sync servos in a gantry setup
Is is possible to synchronize 2 servos to move as 1 axis over EtherCAT? If so, how would this look in practice?
I just finished a dual servo gantry setup using the Sure Servo 2 line with a P2-622 controller with the P2-HSO and P2-HSI cards but had a hard time mitigating conducted noise using this solution. EtherCAT seems like the better way to go but I'm curious how the synchronization of 2 servos looks in practice over EtherCAT.
The LS Electric XMC motion controller has a function block called LS_CrossCoupledControlOn that will couple two axes as one. A virtual axis can be used as the master to follow. We have some interactive help files and an example program. XMC uses more PLCOpen style functions for motion control and is a bit easier to setup over EtherCAT.
XMC XYZ Gantry help site:
https://cdn.automationdirect.com/static/helpfiles/ls_xmc/Content/C_ProcedureTopics/LM1001.htm?tocpath=Tutorials%7C_____2
XMC Cross Coupled FB application:
https://cdn.automationdirect.com/static/support/sampleprg/XMC/XMC_CrossCoupled.zip
LS Electric XEM CPU with and XBF-PN08B/PN04B can also do cross coupled control with function block XPM_CCCON. It works similarly to the XMC but requires the LS Electric XG-PM software for setting up the motion parameters.
An example XGB project for a gantry is at https://cdn.automationdirect.com/static/support/sampleprg/xem/XEM_ECAT_Gantry.zip