OptoNews - September 26, 2007

SNAP PAC System Does Motion Control

Opto 22 Featured in Industry Case Study

Hot Tips from Product Support

August Winner Announced in the "Shoot This, Opto!" Contest

Order Your Lunch & Learn

SNAP PAC System Does Motion Control

Now you can see SNAP PAC System motion control in our latest video.

Here in the Opto factory, we recently converted our G4 Handler to the SNAP PAC System.

The G4 Handler tests all the G4 modules we make and requires digital, analog, and motion control.

After 20 years of service, the G4 Handler's mistic system for digital and analog control was still going strong, but the servoelectric motors (used with a position feedback device) were beginning to fail.

Unable to find an economical replacement for the servos, our manufacturing engineers decided to replace them with stepper motors, a somewhat uncommon but solid option—and a great chance to test our new Motion Control Subsystem.

The Motion Control Subsystem, part of the SNAP PAC System, uses SNAP-SCM-MCH16 motion control host modules and SNAP-SCM-BB4 motion control breakout boards to control up to 16 stepper motors. The host modules snap on the mounting rack alongside digital, analog, and serial modules, and all are controlled by a SNAP PAC programmable automation controller running a PAC Control strategy. A Magellan® Motion Processor chip set in the breakout board outputs pulse and direction signals for the stepper motor systems, controlled by commands in PAC Control.

For the G4 Handler, the six racks of mistic I/O were replaced by a single rack of SNAP I/O that included digital and analog modules plus one motion control host module and one breakout board.

Watch the video

Opto 22 Featured in Industry Case Study

As a manufacturer of control hardware known for its reliability, we use the best parts we can find when designing our hardware.

Our current PACs (programmable automation controllers) offer versatile, built-in networking and protocol options and provide a wide range of functions, and they're based on Freescale’s ColdFire processors.

Usually we write case studies about the many customers who use Opto 22 products. It's fun to be featured in another manufacturer's case study.

Read the Freescale case study

Hot Tips From Product Support

Opto 22's Product Support Group (PSG) develops some helpful tips as they work with customers calling in for free product support. Here are a couple of tips from PSG engineers.

• PAC Control has a handy feature for navigating large charts. When a chart is open and selected, you can use the mouse scroll wheel to move the chart up and down. To move the chart left and right, hold down the Shift key while using the mouse wheel; to zoom in and out on the chart, hold down the Ctrl key.
• And when you're editing a flowchart in PAC Control, if you select a block or a group of blocks, you can use the up/down/left/right arrow keys to move the blocks.

August Winner Announced in the "Shoot This, Opto!" Contest

Many thanks to all of you who sent in your ideas for new Opto 22 training videos. Our "Shoot This, Opto!" contest on the OptoForums ended August 31, and our August prize winner is bthomason. He suggested a video presenting best practices to make PAC Project development and troubleshooting easier. For his suggestion, bthomason will receive a Nintendo Wii.

Don't forget, if you weren't a prize winner but we still use your idea, we'll send you an Opto 22 polo shirt. And thanks for entering!

Order Your Lunch & Learn

"Thanks for the lunch last week," wrote an ACS Seminar Lunch & Learn attendee. "I enjoyed the Opto 22 info. I didn’t realize they had [those] advanced capabilities."

Learn about all our advanced capabilities at your own free Lunch & Learn, served at your own place of business. We'll introduce the SNAP PAC controllers, PAC Project software, brains, and I/O that make up the SNAP PAC System.

Call your local distributor or contact Opto 22 today to order your Lunch & Learn.