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!

The post Wanted: hacker appeared first on Servo drive developer.

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.

The post Argon servo drive firmware 2.1 adds SinCos encoder support appeared first on Servo drive developer.

While I’m typing this, in running a FEM simulation of outrunner BLDC motor to optimize the electrical commutation phase angle for such motor. Iterative simulation takes some 20 hours to compute.

Finding optimum commutation angle makes it possible to implement MTPA (maximum torque per amp) drive algorithm for such engines. Such efficiency boost might be very beneficial especially in battery powered applications such as multicopters, but of course it also will benefit  squeezing more out of the existing motors. More about that later!

The post Perfecting BLDC performance appeared first on Servo drive developer.

The post Argon firmware 2.0 is out! appeared first on Servo drive developer.

•  Improvements
  • IONI Pro HC model maximum output current in AC/BLDC/Stepper modes increased to 25A (was 23A)
  • Re-implemented torque controller using 32 bit floating point arithmetics instead of integer arithmetics (at least theoretical precision improvement)
  • DC motor mode no longer requires parallel connection of drive output phases if current is at most 50% of drive’s maximum output current capability (sensitivity of overcurrent fault with Fault ID 440219 is greatly reduced).
• Fixes
  • Changed limit switch polarity: earlier limit switches needed to be normally open (NO), while drive specifications say that they are normally closed type (NC). Now limit switchers are NC (switch conducting -> motion allowed, switch open -> motion stops).
  • Fix an issue where AC/BLDC motor initialization could become incorrectly phased when Hall sensors are enabled
  • Address an issue where torque was 5% lower than setpoint with TBW parameter value of 4700 Hz

Get it from here.

The post IONI firmware 1.4.0 gets floating point precision appeared first on Servo drive developer.

Argon V2.0.0 beta 4

All reported bugs have been addressed. Beta 4 is a release candidate and it will become official 2.0 if no further problems are found. Once tested, please send feedback about it (email or comment here, also please tell which control mode you are using: torque, velocity or position). Or give vote on the poll on the right sidebar. Get the firmware from here.

Ioni V1.3.0

This update includes lots of changes since the last release. For full change log and downloads, see this wiki page. Feedback is very welcome.

Granity 1.9

The latest Granity includes support for the Ioni V1.3.0 as well as some improvements. Starting from this release, it includes also Linux version!

The post Firmware Monday! appeared first on Servo drive developer.

“Cogging torque of electrical motors is the torque due to the interaction between the permanent magnets of the rotor and the stator slots of a Permanent Magnet (PM) machine. It is also known as detent or ‘no-current’ torque. This torque is position dependent and its periodicity per revolution depends on the number of magnetic poles and the number of teeth on the stator.”

This can be compensated by modulating motor current to counter the motor cogging. The firmware under development adds options to adjust compensation current by few new parameters.

Perfecting motor with cogging and uniformity compensations

In addition to cogging torque, the new feature allows compensating also nonuniformity of torque production. I.e. if motor torque setpoint is kept constant and motor is being turned, it may produce variable amount of torque due to same reasons than cogging. Nonuniformity compensation will modulate the torque setpoint by a selected sine or cosine function and amplitude.

The new feature beta will become available for IONI Pro in the soon upcoming FW release. We hope that this will bring cost of any motor control system down as cheaper motor could achieve nearly same smoothness as expensive ones.

The post Motor torque cogging & uniformity compensation appeared first on Servo drive developer.

Today I spent full day adapting the drive firmware, bootloader firmware and testing application to support the new hardware. It took some time to create a system where the one and only firmware runs on both hardware models. Firmware detects the underlying hardware model and automatically adjusts it’s operation accordingly.

Thank you for all the great name proposals! We are having difficult time choosing one among so many good options. The winner will be announced soon :)

The post High current IONIs arrived! appeared first on Servo drive developer.

Standard firmware version

• Fixes & adjustments:
  • Added additional protection interlocks for drive’s internal in-rush limiter (reliability improvement)
  • Reduce sensitivity of resolver feedback device no-signal failure (fault location code 890101)
  • Increased upper limit of HV DC bus supply (parameter FOV increased)
  • Effectiveness of regenerative resistor improved
  • Speed of Phasing a.k.a. phase search increased
  • Current setpoint during Phasing a.k.a. phase search reduced to reduce unnecessary motor heating during power-on

Racing simulator special version

• Additional changes to simulator wheel special version:
  • Eliminate Phasing a.k.a. phase search error in 110-120 VAC power networks
  • Duty cycle limit parameter (6110) now has 200% scale in 110-120 VAC power networks to have equal effect compared to 220-240 VAC networks

For those who don’t know yet, Argon is being used in many professional racing simulator systems. For introduction, see the comparison below:

The post Argon firmware 1.4.2 released appeared first on Servo drive developer.

For complete list of changes and downloads, see this page. We’re reading every feedback, so please send some of your thoughts in comments here, or by email :-)

The post Argon firmware 2.0 public beta appeared first on Servo drive developer.