A driver is a must-have for any stepper motor.  In a stepper motor system, a driver controls how the motor operates based on signals received from the controller.  It is responsible for sending current through various phases in a stepper motor and also regulates the motor current (torque) and step resolution.  With recent trends of minimizing machine footprint, finding space to install drivers could be challenging.

Standard Stepper Motor System Configuration

Topics: Stepper Motor Drivers, Smooth Drive, VIDEOS, Installation, Microstepping, 5-Phase, 2-Phase, CVD Series, Reducing Vibration, Position Control, Higher Efficiency

Robotic grippers are typically used to grip parts for transport.  The driving force behind a gripper can be pneumatic, hydraulic, or electric.  Which type is best for gripping?

Topics: VIDEOS, Brushless motors, BLE2 Series, Gripper, Torque Limit, Robotics, Closed-Loop Feedback Control, Digital Data Setting

With recent trends focusing on improving engineering efficiency, many products have been developed to specifically help shorten design cycles for machine automation.  Part of improving efficiency is making products easier to use, so additional time and resources can be spent elsewhere.  This post describes an example of a product feature that can make index table applications less complex to manage.

Topics: Linear & Rotary Actuators, DG2 Series, Position Control, Indexing Operation, Stepper Motors, MEXE02 Software, Alphastep Hybrid Control, AZ Series, Absolute Positioning, VIDEOS

In the market of electric motors, there are products designed for general purpose applications, and there are motors designed for specialized applications, such as automated guided vehicles (AGVs) or autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).  While standard, general purpose motors work for most applications such as factory automation, sometimes, it may help shorten your design cycle by going with a motor system that already offers the features that you are planning to implement into your design.  In this post, we will summarize some of these features.

Topics: Closed-Loop Feedback Control, Speed Regulation, Gear motor, Brushless motors, AGV, AMR, Robotics, Flat Hollow Shaft Gearhead, Speed Control, BLV Series, Vector Control, Low Battery Operation, Motor Sizing

There are many stepper motor manufacturers in the market place, but there are even more driver manufacturers.  The crowded market place provides many standard product options for customers to build their motion control system just the way they like it. 

However, if the best possible performance is desired, it would be difficult to beat a tested combination of a specific motor and driver from the same manufacturer.  By combining R&D knowledge from both motors and drivers, unique product features can be developed to improve the performance further.  

In this post, we will discuss 3 main advantages of using a CVD driver with a PKP Series stepper motor.  There's also a video at the bottom of this post that summarizes the features.

Topics: Stepper Motors, Stepper Motor Drivers, Position Control, PKP Series, CVD Series, Microstepping, Vibration Control, Smooth Drive, CVK Series, VIDEOS

Stepper motors are popular for their ability to position accurately as well as their ease of use.  Both the amount of rotation and the speed are controlled easily with the same digital square wave pulse signal.  Unlike servo motors, stepper motors do not need an encoder to operate.  Example applications of stepper motors are CNC machines, index tables, robotics, scanners, and more recently, 3D printers.

Topics: Stepper Motors, Motor Selection, Position Control, High Resolution, Indexing Operation, Reciprocating Motion, PKP Series, 2-Phase, 5-Phase, Closed-Loop Feedback Control, Electromagnetic Brake, Gear motor, VIDEOS

Automation is great for repetitive tasks, such as test fixtures for a process that has to repeated.  In this post, we will explain how to perform a reciprocating motion (back and forth cycles) with a product that does not require a PLC or external presence sensors, which can help speed up design cycles.

Topics: Position Control, Push Motion, MEXE02 Software, Linear Motion, Reciprocating Motion, EAC Series, AZ Series, Alphastep Hybrid Control, Data Setting, Event Trigger, VIDEOS, Linear & Rotary Actuators

There are a variety of ways to synchronize the speed of multiple motors.  In this blog post, we will explain another advantage of using brushless motors systems, which is its ability to set speeds accurately and be able to synchronize speeds on multiple axes easily .  Brushless motors utilize built-in hall-effect sensors to regulate speed.  Even if the load, input voltage, or temperature fluctuates, the speed regulation will always be under +/-0.2% or better.

Topics: Speed Synchronization, Conveyor, Digital Data Setting, Labeling, AC Motors, Brushless motors, IP66, Right Angle Shaft Gearhead, Closed-Loop Feedback Control, Parallel Shaft Gearhead, BMU Series, Speed Control, VIDEOS

With the growing popularity of efficient brushless motors, replacing AC motors with these motors brings several advantages.  In this blog post, we will uncover one of the advantages that can benefit lighter and compact equipment designs.  If we just look at the motors, brushless motors are much more power efficient than AC induction motors.  This means a smaller brushless motor can do the work of a bigger AC motor.  With recent trends in efficiency, brushless motors should be considered during the motor selection process for new designs.

Topics: AC Motors, Gear motor, Conveyor, Brushless motors, Parallel Shaft Gearhead, BMU Series, VIDEOS

Parallel shaft gear motors are the standard configuration in the industry.  However, right angle gear motors are gaining popularity for its ability to minimize the footprint of a machine, such as a conveyor.  Another factor that should be considered is the type of gears used in the gearhead.  While worm gear technology is popular, its gear efficiency can vary from 50~90% depending on gear ratio.  On the other hand, hypoid gear technology keeps its efficiency at 80~95% regardless of gear ratio.  Higher gear efficiency allows more torque to be transferred from the motor to the load shaft, and sometimes allows even smaller motors to be used.

Topics: Brushless motors, AC Motors, Gear motor, Conveyor, Hypoid Gear, Right Angle Shaft Gearhead, Worm Gear, Spur Gear, Helical Gear, Parallel Shaft Gearhead, BMU Series, VIDEOS