The first Argon units were shipped today! This is the last production batch which is distributed directly from Tampere because in the future we will use a warehousing & fulfillment service which yields faster delivery times around the world.
The first Argon units packaged & ready to go!
On the next post I will give a preview version of Granity software for download. Stay tuned!
After Argon prototypes have been inspected, analyzed, measured and stress tested in every imaginable way and found no flaws, we have no choice but start believing it’s as good as it needs to be!
This is a great day for me and Granite Devices – Argon servo drive hardware is now fully completed and officially available worldwide via the web shop! Argon is launched with an limited time introductory price of 389 eur/pcs while the normal price is 489 eur/pcs.
ARGON in the web shop
While hardware is being shipped to the first customers, Granity configuration software and documentation Wiki will be finished and made officially available. So if one receives drive within next days, one may need to wait some time for Granity become available before drives are usable.
ARGON product page in the main web site
“If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” That could describe the ideology behind the quality assurance procedure designed for the Argon drives. The testing hardware & software platform is now fully complete and I did already run the tests for the drives I have in my hands now. This means, drives are being now prepared for shipping!
There will be a dedicated post when items are placed to our web shop for ordering. It could be today or tomorrow!
Lots of progress has been made in testing routines! Only fixing of couple of issues remains before its given a green light.
The look of Argon production testing app
The app records all data collected during testing with great detail to an SQL database which makes it possible to find anomalies in results afterwards if problems arise among shipped units.
A view from SQL database with some test results
However, my work will cease for the rest of the week as I’m heading to a beach ultimate tournament and monthly disc golf competition to Yyteri. I wish joyful summer weekend for all readers!
Here are some fresh product photos of the Argon servo drive. Special thanks to Aki Korhonen for photography! Check out his blog for more amazing stuff.
Argon in all its glory. It’s not a render! © Aki Korhonen
A multi-axis setup with sinle SimpleMotion V2 link. © Aki Korhonen
Please see the poll on the right side of this page. I’m pondering whether we should put mating connectors in the drive package. Screw terminals for J3 and J4 are included, but now I’m thinking whether or not to put also J1 (15 pin D-sub + hood) and J5 (26 pin IDC + ribbon cable) in the package.
In case of screw terminals the choice is easy as they’re always needed. But not everyone wants/needs to use the included J1 / J5 which may lead to partial waste.
Update 25.6.2013: ordered today D-sub connectors (without hood), 26 pin IDC connector (without ribbon cable) and emi suppression cores that will be included in the package. These should let people get started out-of-the-box. Thank you everyone sharing your opinions!
Got some mail today including 500 pcs of Argon boxes and 60 pcs of SimpleMotion V2 USB adapters. Couldn’t spot any flaws in either of them!
A pallet of Argon cardboard boxes. The boxes are very rigid and printing is sharper than expected making the artwork shine :)
A box of fresh USB SimleMotion V2 adapters. Adapters are fully tested in the assembly house.
In the other news, I have been lately creating contents to the Argon user guide Wiki which must have the mandatory parts written and proof read before the drive can be released to market. As this will take some time (as well as finishing & packaging Granity software), we probably start sales & delivers for experienced users first (this probably means you, my fellow blog reader!). This can be done as hardware is final and rest of the materials are delivered over the Internet anyway.
Part of the documentation. Work in progress.
On Friday we received the first release candidate units of Argon servo drive completely assembled.
Argon final version. The very first of their kind!
Argon has two programmable front panel LEDs that indicate the state of drive. Having just 2 LEDs is challenging as there are more than dozen different states that need to be distinguishable. The current solution looks like this.
The present way is to assign orange led solely for faults and green led for motor control sate. To fit large number of states in reasonably short and easy to read blinking sequences, we’re blinking them by combinations of short and long flashes. One state for example can be repeating pattern of short-short-long-pause and another long-long-short-short-pause.
LED blinking example. The sequence here is long-short-short-pause.
The Wiki page (link above) has animated images from each combination making them hopefully easier to identify. What do you think about this approach (please leave a comment)? Another alternative I have been pondering is just flashing led certain number of times. Such as one state is 3 flashes, another 4 flashes. The problem is counting reliably something like 15 flashes.
After a long wait, the first batch of final version of Argon servo drive enclosures have arrived! Some minor changes were made to the design and also manufacturing quality has been improved based on our feedback. In the prototype series there were paint burrs in threads and small bending inaccuracy making assembly some times bit challenging. All these are now gone and the outcome seems flawless!
Argon final enclosure corner detail. Notice also hexagon shaped vent holes for minimal air flow resistance.
As Argon may be used for wide power range from 50 W to 1500 W, the cooling requirements will vary. To help high power users, we made mounting holes for standard low cost “half brick” heat sinks.
Enclosure heat sink side with additional heat sinks attached
Tomorrow the enclosures will continue their journey to electronics assembly house where drive assembly will begin in just few days.