What we develop.
Drivers for Siemens Simotion® The main goal of automation is to enable the automatic execution of workflows. This requires the transformation of electronic and logical signals into mechanical movement at some point in the automation chain.
These movements used to be simple pneumatic or hydraulic movements, also often the activation and deactivation of unregulated asynchronous motors. But with the growing demands on cycle time, it became more and more important to make very exact movements in the shortest possible time. Additionally, movements of variable length or with a variable speed profile were required.
nience for engineering by importing data point lists. What is essential about this is that Simotion is not S7. The communication via TCP/IP very much resembles the communication of S7; some communication packets may even be able to establish connections. But the main function of the Sinumerik – concerning the axis controller – is withheld from the user, unless you use zenon.
All these facts paved the way for programmable axis controllers. These controllers used to control only very simple motor movements. They have developed into highly intelligent and freely programmable controllers, which are in no way inferior to traditional PLC systems, sometimes even outmatching them in terms of complexity.
With zenon, you have full read and write access on both the S7 compatible programmable part and the specific axis controller part. Actually, even more than that, in the zenon Editor, you can automatically import the data point list from the Simotion Scout – the engineering tool for the Simotion axis controller – into the zenon project.
zenon controls simotion® via tcp/ip
Just one click – and the data point list is imported. Of course, the usual filtering, sorting and merging functions are supported. And – as usual for native zenon drivers – this is possible without any third-party components like Simatic Net or the like.
The “historical” Sinumerik® was already a first step in this direction, even if it was highly restricted to pure CNC tasks. With the Simotion® series, Siemens now offers an axis controller that integrates seamlessly into the modern automation landscape with its Ethernet interface. Problems with connectivity had to be overcome. COPA-DATA accepted this challenge, closed the gap and enabled a comfortable and secure connection to the Simotion controller for its customers.
As you can see, zenon greatly facilitates the connection to axis controllers – even for Siemens controllers. Other “candidates” like Elau have already been included for a long time. Equally simply of course. Günther Haslauer, Development Manager
For this, COPA-DATA developed a new driver that allows access to all functions of the Simotion and also offers maximum conveInformation Unlimited | 41