Issue 102 January 1999
The PCL3013 Step/Servo Motor Controller in Action

WHAT ELSE?

Again, the answer is "a lot." There were a number of features I didn’t test, but I do want to tell you about them.
There are several modes involving the origin: origin-return mode 1 and 2, origin-escape mode, and origin-search mode. To test them, you need a stage with limit switches and home switches. This unit doesn’t seem to home the stage to an encoder marker pulse, which is the most accurate method, I believe.
A zero-return mode lets the motor return to zero without writing a zero in R0—similar to a go-home command.
Here’s a great feature: another set of encoder inputs in addition to the manual pulser inputs I referred to earlier. This encoder would likely be mounted directly to the motor.
This feature allows a comparison of the number of pulses sent to the motor and the number of pulses produced by the encoder. If a preset deviation loaded into R8 (environmental-condition register 3) is exceeded, a hardware interrupt is produced and pulses to the motor are stopped.
The one-pulse output mode is self-explanatory. It may be useful when some condition at the I/O port is monitored by the host and then used as the basis for sending commands to the PCL3013 to repetitively move by a single step.
This unit can drive a servo amplifier, too, but it has to be the type that expects a pulse train as input. There are several features and inputs associated with this feature that I was unable to test without such an amplifier. But certainly this is yet another indication of the flexibility of this part.

MORE THAN ENOUGH

Although I didn’t discuss all the features here, you’ve now been introduced to most of them. My aim wasn’t to provide a tutorial on how to use this part but rather to give you a solid indication of its capabilities. I hope I’ve accomplished that.
It takes awhile to come up to speed on this unit because of its complexity, but it’s worth it if you need a leading-edge motor controller.