PLC controlling CNC

[jglass 0]

I think Allen-Bradley offers a CNC slot card. I need to run a couple of air cylinders then make a stepper motor make 3 different moves. No rocket science here. Any ideas or some experience with this CNC slot card. In fact, here is a pic of the same machine I built 3 years ago. I did all that indexing with air cylinders and a shaft with index pins. It worked, now the customer wants to build another machine. Seems like a stepper/servo motor and ball screw would be better for positioning Thanks to all that helped me with the shift register question last week. Thanks, Jim Edited 21 Dec 2004 by jglass

[Eddie Willers 2]

That doesn't look like a CNC application to me, just a simple indexing application. I'm not sure what you meant by "CNC slot card"; the ControlLogix has motion control via analog or SERCOS or SSI but it's not CNC-like. A-B has the Ultra 3000 series servocontrollers that you can connect to with ControlLogix motion or DeviceNet. If there's only one or two axes of motion (and you're set on A-B) I would start looking at the MicroLogix 1500 and the new Ultra 1500 servo controller. The MicroLogix 1500 can do simple step-and-direction motion control fairly easily. If you want to use an SLC-class controller, look into AMCI's stepper controller modules. Don't try the old SLC "IMC-110" servo or stepper modules; they were junk when they were new.

[mgvol 0]

I don't know the particulars, but A-B does make a single-axis Hydraulic motion module: 1746-HSRV. You might look at it on their web-site and see if it will do what need.