I’m currently working on a Argon firmware update that has significance to most of users. It should be ready until Friday. Stay tuned!
Significant firmware upgrade coming
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Factory visit
Today I visited the factory manufacturing Argon drives and delivered the testing system as designed earlier and instructed them the usage of it.
SMT assembled Argon circuit boards on a tray waiting for automatic optical inspection (AOI)
Regardless of Asian EMS services eating European manufacturers’ jobs, this company seems to be doing very well. There were brand new SMT pick’n’place machines and nitrogen atmosphere wave soldering equipment waiting for commissioning to increase the number of manufacturing lines. I was told that the nitrogen atmosphere soldering gives better solder quality than normal air atmosphere systems.
It seems that production is little bit behind from the last estimate, but these boards should be ready during this week if they accept the testing system as is. There was some talk about how to change it for their habits better, but I hope its quick change if needed.
Granity 1.0.1
Granity got updated, already! Many of it’s new features are inspired by an excellent user feedback. The changes are:
- Set Abs and Set Inc buttons to change setpoint manually
- Display list of all parameters together with graphs – becomes useful when saving graphs as the list of parameters gets included in the file as well
- Safe Torque Off status is now displayed
Get the latest version here.
Granity 1.0.1 with more information and control
Keep the feedback & ideas coming! Fixing the found issues and making important improvements is the first priority for us.
Official Granity and Argon user guide now out!
The first official release of Granity software, Argon user guide and Argon firmware has been just published! To begin, read through the Argon user guide, download Granity from here and the latest firmware from here.
There may be (and probably is) some gaps in the documentation and software bugs at the moment, so be careful! Feel free to leave comments and even contribute to the Wiki directly.
Argon user guide & Granity release this week
Just as a quick update: the first revisions of Argon user guide on wiki and Granity software shall be ready during this week which finally allows the real utilization of the drives. Stay tuned!
In the other news: manufacturing of the next batch of Argons has been scheduled for this week, too. We should have more units available for shipping by the end of the next week (but I’m optimistic about it: could happen even on this week)!
Car analogy for tuning
The gaps in the Wiki documentation for Argon are being filled every day and soon it shall be ready enough to allow actual use of the drives. The latest addition is a car analogy for servo tuning – find it here!
Car analogy for servo control and tuning
Granity preview downloadable
I made work-in-progress preview version of Granity available for download so one can already take a look around it and perhaps even provide some initial feelings about it! I also added a new poll about how you would like the software to be distributed.
The preview version is able to connect to a drive but will not change drive settings, just yet
Download Granity Preview here (14.5 Mb)
The first shipments
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!
ARGON servo drive in stock & shipping!
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
Argon testing procedure complete!
“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!