The GM215 is GeckoDrives newest UL Recognized (file number E344711)
motor/motion controller and has been designed from the ground up.
Featuring a full motion controller and GeckoMotion software
compatibility it can run up to four axes of coordinated motion off of
onboard flash memory. Recommended for use with robotics, manufacturing,
filmmaking, aerospace and industrial automation it can free up both
budget and space constraints with its low cost and small size. Some
notable features of the GM215 are:
STEP MOTOR DRIVE FEATURES
The GM215 can operate as a conventional STEP and DIRECTION input step motor drive. MICROSTEPPING: The GM215
has a 10 microstep native resolution; each full step angle of the motor
is divided into 10 equally spaced microsteps so a 200 step per
revolution motor has 2000 stopping locations per revolution.
STEP PULSE MULTIPLIER: The
GM215 synthesizes 10 microstep pulses for every full-step pulse and 5
microstep pulses for half-step pulse. The GM215 acts like a full or
half-step drive but motor has the smoothness of a 10-microstep drive. SUB-MICROSTEPPING: For
the 10 microstep resolution, each input step pulse is divided into 32
sub-microsteps resulting in a motor smoothness equal to a 320 microstep
drive.
MORPHING: The
GM215 morphs from sine-cosine motor currents at low speeds to
square-wave currents at high speeds. This technique extracts the maximum
possible power from the motor at higher speeds. Morphing begins at
240RPM and ends at 360RPM. MID-BAND RESONANCE COMPENSATION: The
GM215 uses active second-order damping to completely suppress a step
motor’s tendency to resonate and stall at medium speeds (300RPM –
900RPM). This results in stable motor operation in this region.
LOW SPEED RESONANCE COMPENSATION:
Low speed resonances are motor vibrations at speeds below 120 RPM
caused by motor non-linearity. The PROFILE and ADJUST trimpots settings
nulls these vibrations. PROTECTION: The GM215 is
protected against motor to ground and motor to motor output
short-circuits. It is also protected against reversed power supply
polarity and power supply over-voltage. The internal fuse blows on
polarity reversal and over-voltage.
AUTOMATIC STANDBY CURRENT: If
enabled, the motor phase current is reduced to 70% of the set value and
the GM215 motor switching topology is changed to a low heating
recirculating mode. This happens 1 second after the last step pulse is
received.
MOTION CONTROLLER FEATURES
The GM215 motion controller core is a 16-bit
MCU, FPGA, Flash ROM and an RS485 interface transceiver. The motion
controller executes ASCII format commands sent from an external PC or
from its own non-volatile memory. FTDI RS485 CABLE can be used to communicate
with PC, to program on-board FLASH ROM, and to update latest G215 PIC24
microprocessor code.
'ON THE FLY' MOTION CONTROL: Acceleration, velocity and destination can be changed even while the motor is in motion. The new values apply immediately. MULTIPLE AXIS MOTION: Up to 4 GM215 drives can communicate with each other to execute coordinated multi-axis motion.
RUN FROM STORED PROGRAM: The
GM215 can run stored motion programs from its non-volatile Flash memory
without a computer connected to it. The memory can store over 65,000
coordinates or program lines. POWERFUL COMMAND-SET: The
command-set includes 'if-then-else' conditional branching, looping and
macros (subroutines). It also includes canned high-speed HOME routines,
JOG routines, SPEED control routines and more.
DIGITAL OR ANALOG CONTROL: The
GM215 can be controlled by PC program. User can set up acceleration,
velocity, and distance by typing in proper number according to different
applications. The GM215 also has 3 on-board trimpots to
allow setting acceleration, velocity and destination instead of using
digital settings.
Analog value can even be changed during
motor is running. These features can be used in applications such as
real-time speed control and position adjust. GENERAL PURPOSE I/O: The GM215 has three opto-isolated user defined inputs and three opto-isolated user defined outputs.
The general purpose I/O can be used as reset button, home limit switches, or emergency stop button. RS-485 INTERFACE: The GM215
has RS485 interfaces available. There are two main purposes of using
RS485: 1) communicate with host PC. 2) Communicate between drives. The
default baud rate is 115,200.
BOOT-LOADER: The user can
update the GM215 firmware using the built in boot-loader function. More
powerful functions and modules will be added and posted on GECKO DRIVE
website, user can download the latest code and flash the microprocessor
using boot-loader.
GM215 Manual
GeckoMotion Manual
