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!

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.

Simulator wireless magnetic paddle shifters and buttons

It’s time to make another post about amazing work of Juha. Now he has completed his design of magnetic paddle shifters as well as wireless transceiver. A group of us did test drive of the wheel and everyone immediately fell in love with the snappy feeling of magnetic shifters.

The magnetic switch has a micro switch and a small permanent magnet to produce the “spring” force of the paddle.

Magnetic paddle shifter

Magnetic paddle shifter

Paddles and buttons on a frame with wireless transceiver

Paddles and buttons on a frame with wireless Bluetoot transceiver and battery

Button frame front side

Button frame front side

Simulator wheel with controls installed

Simulator wheel with controls installed

See it in action:

Maybe best of all, it’s open design. 3D printable parts and other info can be found from this Thingiverse page.

Simulator rig

We asked couple of friends to help assembling the SimuCUBEs of the Indiegogo campaign, and as reward from their help I gave them SimuCUBEs. Well, this is what happens when you give them to brilliant people:

Simulator rig frame where the seat, steering wheel, pedals and SimuCUBE will be installed

Simulator rig frame where the seat, steering wheel, pedals and SimuCUBE will be installed

Cutting simu rig plywood parts with CNC router

Cutting simulator rig plywood parts with CNC router

This is a project of Juha which has been inspired by the earlier build of another help contributor, Mika. More updates will follow!

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.

ATOMI – the ultimate 4 axis CNC controller

We’re proud to announce ATOMI, the revolutionary multi axis drive for CNC applications. It is a closed loop stepper drive that essentially turns stepping motors into servo motors. ATOMI gives the benefits of both worlds: reliability of servos and high torque of steppers.

ATOMI age is coming

ATOMI age is coming

ATOMI will be launched in the Indiegogo on Q2/2016. Stay tuned and grab the early bird specials!

Ps. it is largely based on IONI technology. IONI Pro will get all the same features than ATOMI through firmware upgrades.

Peak power limit feature is coming

Today’s development on IONI Pro has revolved around the development of feature called Peak power limit. With that, user can set the exact amount of Watts that drive is allowed to transfer from PSU to motor.

This may be useful when using drive from a switch mode power supplies that normally shut down on overload condition. With this parameter, one can set exact amount of power that is available from PSU to prevent overloads. This also helps to save money on power supply as there is less need oversize the PSU in order to handle the highest load peaks.