How To Setup IAI RCON-GW-EIP with Omron N series Using Structure

Hello everyone this is Tom Trinh, Senior Application Engineer for Valin Corporation.

Today I will illustrate how to control an IAI RCP actuator with an RCON Gateway Ethernet IP interface from the PLC.

The PLC can be any PLC manufacturer, can be Adam Bradley, can be Mitsubishi, can be Siemens. This just happened to be an Omron PLC that I'm using here, the N Series PLC.

So what you see in front of you here is the actuator that I show on my camera. This is an RCP actuator, RCP6 actuator. On the left hand side is a sample program how to turn on the servo, how to execute a move using this bit, how to home the servo, how to jog the servo forward and how to jog the servo backward. And I have little two move statements here basically to change the position before I move and so that's how it's set up.

Having said that, I'm going to go through it real quick so you can see if I turn on the servo it will be, the servo will be locked on and here we go, let's do that. OK, so servo is on. I know there's a feedback here indicated it is on, that's why a light is on here.

So what I'm going to do next is I'm going to jog,  actually I'm going to home it first. So you can see. So this is the home. So the actuator is homing right now. OK, so that's position zero.

And how do I do that? How do I know that if I go down here, yeah, it shows current position -1, that's .001 millimeter. 

Anyway, so what we're going to do next is I'm going to set up my position. Let's say I want to go 2000. That means 20.00mm. OK, so I'm going to go ahead and do that by turning on this bit here.

All right, so now the position command that I want to go to is 2000, and I see it's here as well. So now at this point, by the way, at the minimum you need to set up the position width with some value. It cannot be 0. If you put zero it will generate an error. So I have one here. That means as long as the position with gets within .01 millimeter, the position complete signal will turn on and that's when you know to do the next process. You need to have some speed in here. This is in millimeter per second. I have 100mm per second in here. The Accel I have 50 that means point .5G. All right, these are the minimum that you need to set up.

So right now the current position that I want to go. The position I want to go to is 20mm. So at this point if I execute this move axis one by turning it on. Now it goes to 20 mm. And how do I know that? Because if I go down here and look at my status it shows 20.01 millimeter.

OK, let's say I'm going to turn this bit off for now, let's say I want to go to 9000 which is 90 millimeter. So I'm going to turn that bit on and as soon as I do that, you see this change to 9000, which is 90mm. Voila, OK, but it's not doing anything yet, right? Because I'm just setting up the position where I want it to go. At this point, if I turn on the move bit, it will execute the move and the actuator will extend to 90mm. So let's do that.

Voila, it's at 90mm. How do I know that? Because if I go to the current position, the current position is at 9000. OK, so that's how it works.

If I want to jog, I can certainly do that as well. I'm going to turn off this bit first. So I'm going to jog it minus. So it will go back here to zero. I'm going to stop. See, as soon as I stop, it stop.

OK, All right. So that's how it's is set up. Very simple once you have the structure set up in here.

Now how do you set up the structure and the global variable. you notice here. I'm going to start right here so you can see it. So I have for example, SON. I have To_IAI.Axis1.Control.SON. Right?

So To_IAI is the global variable. Let me go to global variable. You see there's a To_IAI here, all right. And the data type is MyIAI_Control. All right, Within MyIAI_Control which is data type, which is here you see within that MyIAI_Control, I have three elements, one is the Gateway, one is Axis1, and one is Axis2. So these are, it just happened that I have only two axis. If I need to have more axis, up to 16 axis and that's what the RCON controller, the RCON Gateway EIP, you can have up to 16 axis. You’re basically going to build up 14 more axis here. OK, so that's MyAI_Control and same thing with the MyIAI_Response, Gateway, Axis1, Axis2. All right, so that's MyIAI.

Now within the IAI, as you can see the gateway. You don't need to do much about it but Axis1. So you need to create another structure called Axis 1. So RCON_Control_Axis1 is the structure for that. OK, so within that I have the position that I want to go to. PositioningWidth, speed, Accel_Decel, PushingCurrentLimitValue, and the Control. These are control signals. right. So you have that and then within the control signal for axis one that's another structure and within that these are the bits already mapped out for you. You have CSTR which is the execute the move. The Home, STP is to pause the position. RES is reset. SON is what we just used earlier. JSL is basically to inch the Jog. You got jog velocity, you got jog minus,  jog plus and so these are some extra in here as well. So my point is that  all of these bits already mapped out and so that's the control signal structure.

OK, so if you go back to the program, you see right to turn on the servo, you have To_IAI.Axis1  which is the another structure and then .Control.SON.

So once you have the structure set up, it is very easy to make the program.

So that's how you set up the IAI RCON Gateway Ethernet/IP interface to control an IAI RCP actuator.

It can be actually really any IAI actuator. It can be ISA , can be RCP6 and any other legacy RCP as well as well as EC cylinder which is the electric cylinder that to replace some of the pneumatic cylinder.

Thank you for watching and please call (855) 737-4716 or fill out our online form you have any questions.