A new Digital MMC from G & L Motion Control mounts directly in an MMC Smart Drive servo amplifier, and controls the amplifier it resides in and up to 15 additional MMC Smart Drive servo amplifiers. The amplifiers are daisy-chained together with a simple RJ-45 connection.

The field-installable Digital MMC is available in 1, 2, 4, and 16 axis versions. It can mount in both 230 V and 460 V MMC Smart Drive servo amplifiers, which are available in power ranges from 0.5 kW to 24 kW. The Digital MMC includes 8 dc inputs and 8 dc outputs onboard. In addition, the I/O on each drive (8 dc inputs, 4 dc outputs and 1 analog input per drive) is accessible to the application program over the digital network. The Digital MMC can interface to G & L Motion Control's distributed I/O network, which allows up to 77 block modules. The Digital MMC also provides an RS-232/422/485 serial port for connection to an HMI, and built-in 10/100 Ethernet for remote programming, Ethernet HMI, peer-peer communication, or connection to your plant network or the Internet.

PiCPro for Windows software is used for application program development and for drive setup, configuration, and tuning. PiCPro provides single-point IEC61131 programming, utilizing ladder logic and function block or structured text for logic, motion, process, data management, and communications. In addition, PiCPro provides maintenance tools such as program animation, forcing, and online edit, as well as tools such as oscilloscope and control panel to configure and tune the servos. Parameters can be downloaded to all the drives in a Digital MMC Control system with a single click of the mouse.

PiCPro's motion control capabilities include positioning, indexing, gearing, cam profiling, and interpolation. The digital network used by the Digital MMC is a centralized control scheme specifically designed for high performance motion control. The network has been optimized for fast transfer of real-time drive data and I/O status, which makes it ideal for high-speed multiaxis applications.