Introdruction
Maxon MiniMACS is a low-cost multi axis controller from maxon. With maxon MiniMACS you can control stepper motors, DC motors, BLDC motors with or without encoders. Using the EtherCAT interface you can connect this with ctrlX CORE and implement low-priced aumotion solution. This How-To demonstrates how to use MiniMACS with one stepper motor.
Prerequisites
- ctrlX CORE, V 1.20 with Motion and EtherCAT Master app
- maxon MiniMACS
- 2 phase stepper motor
- ApossIDE + Device description file of maxon MiniMACS
- ctrlX WORKS, V 1.20
- Program to control stepper
Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1: Connect the electric cables according to hardware reference document. In this case see following picture:
Step 2: Download and open the attached .zip data using ApossIDE. Then upload this program to maxon MiniMACS hardware.
Step 3: Upload maxon MiniMACS device description (see link) to ctrlX I/O Engineering (Tools -> Device Repository -> Install).
Step 4: Right click on "ethercatmaster" and click on "scan for devices..." and download the EtherCAT configuration to ctrlX CORE (Online -> Download).
Step 5: Create axis profile in Motion app.
Step 6: Change the scaling information of the axis profile in Data Layer. See description for more information.
Step 7: Add the axis profile to an axis in Motion app and you can now commission the axis.
Have fun and good luck 😉
