Mach4 motion plugin for Granite Devices drives

Today Granite Devices turns 11 years! Our team of 8 people thank all our community members for making this journey so awesome!

In the other news, we have just released the first open beta version of Mach4 Granite Devices motion control plugin. All CNC users out here, welcome to test it with your IONI, ARGON and soon to be released ATOMI drives! Grab a free Mac4 plug-in download from our Wiki.Mach4 pluginShortly put, the plug-in makes it possible to control drives straight from PC USB port. No middle-hardware or step pulse generators needed.

If you try it, drop a comment below, or at our community forum thread here.

Wanted: hacker

hacker_debugliveCurious to learn what’s inside in the top-tier servo drives? Want to put your ideas in motion? Are you a natural born microcontroller hacker suited for the job?

In other words, we’re now hiring the best of the best hacker available to take a major role in servo drive firmware development. If your socks started spinning already, don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime chance and drop Granite Devices your CV now!

Community forum launched!

I’m excited to announce brand new community forum to seed brainstorming and ideas around motor control related projects. The community forum is the first-hand media to get the latest updates of motor control development.

First 50 community members will be given an exclusive access to a private SimuCUBE’s beta testing forum. They will be the first ones to get to test-drive the beta when it’s released.

Join now at: https://community.granitedevices.com

communityThis forum will be also the official discussion forum for this Blog. The link is on the top navigation bar. See you there :)

 

 

Argon servo drive firmware 2.1 adds SinCos encoder support

The just released Argon servo drive firmware version 2.1.0 adds support for encoders with analog Sin/Cos outputs. Drive allows selecting interpolation factors of 16, 64 and 256 for such encoder. This means that an sin/cos encoder with 1000 lines per revolution, would give resolution equivalent of 256*1000 lines. In addition to this, normal quadrature decoder 4x gain applies on top of that, meaning that 1000 line encoder will yield total resolution of 1024000 counts per revolution.

The FW upgrade contains also many other improvements based on the user feedback that we have received. For full list & download, see firmware page at wiki.

New ATOMI servo & stepper drive boards are here!

Earlier announced ATOMI is finally getting the focus it deserves! Now we have second revision boards under our scope for testing and firmware development. From initial tests, we can tell that we’re very close to the final design. At the moment it looks like we need only to change one resistor value on the PCB to make it final.

ATOMI boards along with 400W AC servo motor and IONI Pro HC drive

Four axis drive ATOMI boards along with 400W AC servo motor and IONI Pro HC drive

We can thank Esa Hippolin from the beautiful hardware design.

SimuCUBE final hardware has just born

Today we received the first samples of final SimuCUBE board designs. Testing of it shows no flaws so we’re giving the green light for the first 250 pcs batch assembly! All parts are already in stock, so assembly should not take too many days.

SimuCUBE with the needle bed SimuCUBE production tester device

SimuCUBE with the needle bed SimuCUBE production tester device

The photo above shows also the work-in-progress test bed for SimuCUBE that will be used to test & verify the operation of every shipped SimuCUBE. The device under test will be placed on the top of the bed and the spring loaded pins will contact certain pads on the bottom of the SimuCUBE board to allow tester to contact all necessary signals at once.

The first SimuCUBE is real!

Prototypes of SimuCUBE motherboards and acrylic case have just arrived! The first successful test drive has been done with a big smile :) We hope to have Indiegogo campaign launched on the next week. Get ready for early bird specials!

SimuCUBE front

SimuCUBE front

SimuCUBE rear

SimuCUBE rear

SimuCUBE motherboard with IONI Pro HC and 320 power supply

SimuCUBE motherboard with IONI Pro HC and 320 power supply

Construction of the acrylic case

Construction of the acrylic case

With 30 Nm peak MiGE motor

Aside with 30 Nm peak MiGE motor

Ingenious SimuCUBE hardware & enclosure design and photos by Aki.

SimuCUBE – the force feedback controller from the future announced

I’m happy to reveal the details of the upcoming force feedback controller – SimuCUBE! The hardware design is now complete for prototyping and we will get prototypes in the lab in the next month. SimuCUBE has a STM32F4 microcontroller that is compatible to a popular STM32F4 Discovery board. The plan is to start an open source firmware project for this board.

SimuCUBE will change the way simulators are built. Click to enlarge.

SimuCUBE will change the way simulators are built. Click to enlarge.

Brilliant hardware design & image render by Aki.