PLC based servo motor controller

Hello, everyone, last year I finished my first 2dof project by the help of Xsimulator community, and after that I shared all the details in a domesitc social media of my country, lots of people showed interest and helped me to improve with their knowledge.

Servo motors are definitely a best power source for motion simulator, but there are not many affordable and easy to use interfaces available.
Luckily in my follower group, a guy from a PLC manufacture figured how to use his industrial Programmable Logic Controller that is compatible with simtools to run servo motors.

In this thread, I will share the most basic version that can run 4 motors(there are models that can run up to 10), and hopfully you can give some advises to let us make it better.

My SFX100 looklike rig and actuator build will be introduce in project thread later.

To see the functionality of the PLC please do watch the video below, sorry for my bad English.
I will explain if you wish to know more about this.
Thanks. BKai (aka SoftKitty)

Hi there,
I am also trying to use PLC to build my simulator, would you please tell me how did you communicate flypt to PLC?
I appreciate you if you can help me with that!

Best regards,

@SoftKitty can you please help me with this case?

Did anyone ever get an answer on how to communicate flypt to PLC from @SoftKitty? Did he share the code with anyone?

Thanks

are you controlling the servo drivers using voltages and direction pin ?

The code was developed with a friend of mine, at the moment we won't share it, it's on sale with the PLC controller in our country.
The purpose of this thread is letting people know this kind of solution exists.

I can answer the basic principle of communication: it uses serial port, almost the same with the SMC3 setup. The key is letting the PLC read the serial data and send into actions.

I'm using the pulse+dir mode. similar with thanos AMC controller.
the only difference is I'm using open collector wiring instead of differential wiring.

I'm new to allot of this stuff but I'm working on a plan for my own personal simulation platform.

So if I understand what you are stating here, your "Programmable Logic Controller that is compatible with simtools to run servo motors" is capable of working with the smaller 6 Axis Industrial Robot such as Kuka, Fanuc, and ABB?

Can you provide the website which sells your product so I can do more research?

Also can you provide pricing for your package? (I hope this isn't against the rule to ask)

Thanks

Yes, it's by which most of the servo motors are driven in industrial applications, PLC is like a drive signal generator for them.
The PLC I use is made by Samkoon, its coding lanuage is very similar to Siemens PLC.
I'm not sure about the rule either, I will PM you the price information.

I have a few of these Schneider LMC 20s. I'm willing to share some with anyone who can help with getting them up and running/communicating with Simtools.
thanks
Mark

Hey,

I bought a 4 actuator rig of a local sim cafe operator. It's new and from China. It's not branded.
Long story short the guy doesn't know anything technical and his employees who do are away on an extended vacation back to China.

MY problem is I have a Samkoon FGRS-C8X8T-4/4 PLC controller which is running the drives.
I cannot get the rig to run in testing. I believe my problem is with the Interface Output string in Interface Setting.
I've tried the combinations that were told to me which they are running at the cafe such as
<Axis1a>A<Axis2a>B<Axis3a>C<Axis4a>D etc, and various combination of this. Looked in the manual for the Samkoon PLC which is pretty generic and can't figure out what string I need in there to get the PC to communicate with the controller.

I'm hoping you guys maybe have some input on what I can try. I found your post from search Samkoon and this really is the only time that type of PLC controller is mentioned on this forum.
I'm trying to set this up in V3.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.,

any pictures of your rig? I would like to check what its motors and touch screen look like.

Here are some pictures of the setup.

No touch screen on this PLC controller. I have not plugged into it yet as of now but i'm thinking I should?? I think I need to download some software off Samkoon's site.

Oh one last thing to mention, when I go into test mode, all 4 actuators do stand up and start, but nothing works in the test other than that.

I found the manual for the PLC here:
https://www.drdreduktor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/instruction-manual-of-samkoon-plc.pdf

Yours looks similar to what I used, but I'm not sure what is coded inside, so I can only give you my settings and let you have a try.

The touch screen can set some parameters like the speed of the actuators and how much the rig reacts to inputs from PC.
If the person who sold you this has used the rig before, the parameters are less likely to remain zeros so I guess you can use without the touch screen.
The Samkoon soft and manuals wouldn't help you, because that's all about how to code it, your problem is to set the interface and match the code inside the PLC.

If so most of your setup is correct, the controller has got some input(not correctly) from the you PC simtools.

Here is my interface settings:

ComPort No. should be set as what you saw on your "device manager"

Okay yeah I've tried that but not upto 6 axis.
I will try entering the info as you have and give it a try.

Hello , I am also a player from China, my current equipment is using nanotec C5E series, the specific electric axis should be pd4 or something, and then the USB interface, directly plugged into the computer host, will generate a USB flash drive in my computer. Then I now use the v2 version to have a special interface plugin, and then I now upgrade v3, there is no interface plugin of this nanotec, v3 inside I tried all the parameters, the electric cylinder does not move, are you interested in studying this?