Running stepper from KRC4

[Sailor Soane]

Hi all,

Does anyone have experience running an external stepper from within KRL? I've integrated a Beckhoff EL7047 to run the stepper and will probably start sorting out the process tomorrow. I thought I'd check in to see if anyone has any feedback/advice/etc. about this before I get started as its not something I've ever done before. Many thanks in advance.

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello,

I do remember KUKA telling me that it is not a supported element, but that usually shouldn't stop it from working. However, I quickly tried to add it to a WorkVisual project, and only the EL7031 showed up, even though I definitely also imported the EL7047.
From looking at the IOs via CodeSys (see screenshot) I'm not sure how easy it will be to control a stepper through KRL as it seems that you will have to define your own logic etc. In systems like TwinCAT and CodeSYS you have specialized software modules that make it easier to use steppers in a more "abstract" way.
Please let me know if you get it to work!

Best,
Johannes

[Sailor Soane]

I had the same issue, so I loaded the DTM files from 2015 and now the 7047 shows up. I was able to add it to the stack in WoV and route most of the I/O (but not all) - amazingly, I'm not getting any X44 errors once pushed to the controller. I'll let you know how this goes...

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Sounds good - great idea with the old definitions!
Were the problematic IOs the UINTs, such as the "ENC status compact"? At the moment, I don't really have a good idea on how to link them, but I may just be tired ;)
For more settings, in case you haven't seen that yet, you can double-click the module and the go into the tab "Modules", where you can set a variety of stepper properties, such as the Kd factor etc.
Best,
Johannes

[Sailor Soane]

Yes, the UINT's are the ones without corresponding routes. I'm going to see if I can get basic functionality without them.

Very helpful - I had no idea I could pull that menu up for an ethercat component. Thanks!