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All change for motor control as more engineers outsource

Precision motor giant reports "sea change" in attitudes to building controllers.

The market leader in high-precision DC drives, maxon motor, has noticed a sudden surge in the number of design engineers specifying matching controllers for their DC brushed and brushless motors. Traditionally, the world-class engineers who have relied upon maxon products down the years - in fields as challenging as space exploration, surgical instruments, advanced robotics and Formula 1 racing - would place such intense demands upon their controllers that it often made sense to build them in-house. Now, however, advances in off-the-shelf controller technology have reversed the situation - with an increasing number of engineers viewing home-making motion control electronics as a waste of time, money and effort... not to mention an unnecessary risk.

maxon senior sales engineer Paul Williams explains: "With the quality available in controllers now, we're suddenly seeing a lot of engineers compare that cost to the time and money they'd spend developing in-house... and the savings are simply huge."These days you have immense functionality, with all kinds of hardware and connections - and energy efficiencies as high as 95% - on something affordable that's not much bigger than a stamp! It's a no-brainer, really.

"It is easy to overlook the work and investment that has gone into their development not just in engineering, components and technical design, but also the certification of the unit; CE, EMC, communication standards, electrical safety and so on. When developing a controller from scratch, the cost and time involved in these things alone are often much higher than you'd think. What's more, buying a controller that's completely optimised for your motor - with in-built protection against overcurrent, excess temperature, under and over-voltage, transients and short-circuits - cuts out a whole lot of risk.

"I used to see a lot of expensive motors burned out at the prototype stage because of simple errors wiring the in-house controller. Thankfully, that's now increasingly a thing of the past."

Good things, small packages
Among the new generation of miniaturised, high-performance controllers that has changed the motion control landscape so dramatically is maxon's highly popular 36/2 ESCON DC servo motor controller. The maxon engineers' initial claims that the tiny 55 x 40mm controller represented a "breakthrough" have certainly been supported by its performance in the market, with design engineers flocking to take advantage of its dynamic, 4-quadrant control capabilities for brushed DC motors up to 72W. A variety of operating modes, including open and closed loop speed control, current control and bonus functions like speed-ramping, make the ESCON a versatile performer at speeds up to 150,000 rpm.

Nonetheless, Paul Williams believes it is the controller's widespread compatibility and ease of use which - along with its tiny dimensions - have been the biggest difference to engineers designing new technology. "It's absolute child's-play to configure," he enthuses. "Just plug it into your PC's USB port and away you go. You don't need any external hardware, and we can even supply pre-assembled startup cables if you like. The thing is, it's such a neat little package so it's really easy to tuck it away in your device and hook it up to your existing design. Job done." A sister controller, ESCON 50/5, will be launched in the coming days - extending the same level of functionality and convenience to both brushed and now brushless motors up to 250 watts.

Although off-the-shelf controllers are becoming ever smaller and more sophisticated, many applications still require something unique - be it a particular shape and size, unusual wiring, protective shielding against extreme conditions or even bespoke software. Maxon bridges this gap by offering a full customisation service for all its control products - a move so successful that more than half its UK controller orders are now custom-specified.

Paul Williams continues: "Controllers like the ESCON 36/2 are naturally exceptional in their own right, but often a new application needs something extra special. We're all engineers, so there's nothing we like more than a challenge - whether it's to fit a certain space, survive temperature and vibration or simply to integrate seamlessly with existing firmware. It's not just for big customers, either - we offer all kinds of customisation to companies ordering barely a handful of controllers each year.

"It's always great to get a call about a demanding new application - helping design engineers achieve the impossible is what we do every day."

maxon motor UK Ltd

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All change for motor control as more engineers outsource

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