XesaSystems X620-EA and SimTools or FlyPT Mover

My friend has a 6dof X620-EA platform from XesaSystems.

Here are some technical specifications:
- Dimensions (L×W×H): 3900×2450×2950mm
- Weight: 1900kg
- Centre of Mass (L×W×H): 1700×1200×1400mm
- Pitch: +/- 23°
- Roll: +/- 23°
- Heave (usable): 650mm (+/- 325mm)
- Payload: 2000kg at 550mm in height from C.G.



A friend of mine has successfully used this platform with X-Plane Flight Simulator and Microsoft Flight Simulator, but there are no plugins to support other simulators.

XesaSystems support is not working because the company has ceased operations.

I really want to try to control the X620-EA platform with SimTools or FlyPT Mover.

In the near future, I will try to visit my friend and study the platform in more detail.

At the moment, it is known that the platform is driven by six actuators with servos. The controller is a Siemens PLC.

Has anyone worked with XesaSystems platforms and software?

I will post photos and more details when I have time to take a closer look at the platform.

For now I can say that the actuators have Baumueller motors and inductive limit switches which are used for zero position calibration.


Here are some images of the Siemens PLC touchscreen from the platform's technical description:


I will receive detailed information about the engines and drivers soon.

Baumueller Servo drives usually support a large variety of different interface signals. I'm pretty sure that you can configure the drivers to either use step/dir or analogue +/-10V speed command signals. Depending on the age and model it may also support CAN. You just have to find the nameplate and google for the manual.

If you remove the Siemens PLC you can probably make enough money by selling it to buy a Thanos or Motion4Sim controller to drive the servos.

Today I will study the technical part of the platform.

At the moment I see 2 ways to launch the platform:

1. Remove the Siemens PLC from the electrical circuit. Instead, install a controller from @Thanos (Motion4Sim or your own design). Control the platform using SimTools or FlyPT Mover.
In this case, you also need to connect the limit switches installed in the platform drives to the controller.

2. Do not remove the Siemens PLC and use the X-Sys software that was supplied with the platform upon purchase.

Based on the information we were able to find, the X-Sys software can receive UDP packets from third-party simulation software.

Then you can try to use, for example, FlyPT Mover as a "third-party simulation software" by setting the output string of the required format in the UDP port that the X-Sys software listens to.

All that remains is to find a protocol by which the X-Sys software will interact with the third-party simulation software.

I'll try to find more information about X-Sys software. The platform was bought more than six years ago, I hope that not all the documentation is lost...

Servomotors: Baumuller DSC 071 S64U20-5 TENV
Drivers: Baumuller BM4423-ST1-01200-03
Controller: CPU S7-300
PLC Siemens TP177A

Drivers are controlled by the PROFIBUS protocol

I will continue to search for information

Found a picture of the connection diagram. The diagram shows that there is a RS-485 port.

Hmm, I can find a "Kurzanleitung" (quick reference manual) in the download area at Baumueller. The connections of the motor, encoder, brake and safety signals are mentioned there. But unfortunatelly, I don't find any information about the command signals. Your schematics show "X1 Profibus" and an RS485 connector next to it. Maybe it's in the software/parameter manual.

In the Baumueller documentation, the RS-485 is mentioned in the description of the encoder connector (page 211 bmaXX-bm4000.pdf).

The additional DB-9 connector is listed as Ethernet/RS232 (pages 201-204 bmaXX-bm4000.pdf).

I didn't find the same driver in the documentation as in my photo.