Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Don't forget something

As Alex Osborn said: "ideas evaporate faster than water". I think is better fix all the steps and project decisions in a document so it is possible review them in a long time.

Now in the resource gadget on this page you can find a link to that document. Now it is incomplete but I want update it along this project so at the end it can be use for reproduce and fix it .




Saturday, November 14, 2020

Motors are running !



We realized an application for test driver and motors on bench. As you can see wiring is rather confused... but is only temporary for test.

you can find here the Codesys application for this test:
 

In order to reach this result driverd


need to be parametrized for the specific motor and application. This is dome using the Infranor software “Gem Drive Studio”. It can be downloaded from Infranor website.

Voltage level are left as default, external breaking resistor in not needed

We selected the motor model we have, all parameters are set automatically

Auto phasing was asked, this activated a procedure for sensor phasing.


Position loop is set for minimum following error this is the best for this application.

Autotuning procedure was asked, this activated a strong step movement for loop gain computing. This procedure will ‘be done again when motors will be mounted on the telescope with real mechanical charge.


These are computed control parameters from autotuning procedure


Position sensor parameters are left as default.

This assure the position accuracy 360/4096 = 0.087 °


All other parameters are left as default.










 

Saturday, November 7, 2020

Raspeberry activation

Hello to all, 

work is in progress on the controller side.

We select Raspberry Pi 4 Model B as controller for the observatory. It is a medium performance controller and low prices, has a Linux operating system and is supported by Codesys. Many hardware peripherals are available on the market for Raspberry. CODESYS is the leading manufacturer-independent IEC 61131-3 automation software for engineering control systems. This provides us Ethercat fieldbus support, sophisticated motion libraries and communication libraries over IP. It is used for the brushless driving with DS402 profile.

Wifi connection is use for the communication with PC where Polypus is installed. Morover Raspberry has many GPIO lines useful for digital I/O connection and I2C line where many more complex devices can be manged.





For Raspberry OS installation the Raspberry Pi imager is used. It can be download from the official Raspberry website, it allows the OS selection. We used the raccomanded 





For Raspberry OS installation the Raspberry Pi imager is used. It can be download from the official Raspberry website, it allows the OS selection. We used the raccomanded

With this step the SD card is programmed ready to be inserted in the Raspberry board.

After that connecting Raspberry to: a video monitor, a USB keyboard and a USB mouse we have our own system running.

Other steps needs to be done in order to complete installation:

  1. Insert pasword for pi user.
  2. Connect wifi
  3. Enable SSH protocol.

 

Now you have Raspberry with standard linux support. For application where the real time is important jiitter genarate by task context switch need to be reduced. For this porpose a stronger kernel have to be installed. It can be found at following address with the info for installation.

 https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=250927 


On this Linux system we install the Codesys runtime for Raspberry. First step is the Codesys developing system (IDE) on a PC. Main purpose of this software is the application developping. It can be dowloaded for free with this link:

https://store.codesys.com/tag/product/list/tagId/38/


After download ad installation we have the environment running


For Raspberry runtime installation and programming an extra package need to be get from Codesys website from this address

 

https://store.codesys.com/codesys-control-for-raspberry-pi-sl.html


This package is not for free but without license it is possible use it in demo mode for 30 minutes after that it is automatically stopped. This is enough for developping and evaluation.

Package needs to be installed in the codesys with menu command: tools/Package manager.

After package installation with the command: tools/ Update Raspberry Pi we have this panel. Selecting Raspberry IP address, giving the password for pi user you set in the OS installation and pressing “Install” button you have codesys runtime on our own device.


Now Raspberry is ready to accept Codesys application.

In the next day we'll delevop a test application for motion movement ..