Once your system is set up and ready for use, it must be tuned in order to control it. The better tuned a system is, the closer the Actual Position follows the Target Position (the desired path of movement).
Tuning procedures differ depending on the type of system. This manual contains the following procedures that may work for the following systems. Please read the General Tuning Guidelines section before continuing to any of the tuning procedures.
Tuning Wizard
RMCWin provides a time-saving tuning wizard that calculates the gains based on plots of the motion. For details, see the Tuning Wizard topic.
General Tuning Guidelines
Keep these general guidelines in mind throughout the tuning procedure.
There is no substitute for experience when tuning an axis. The procedures offer some guidelines, tips, and suggestions for tuning your system. While the steps will work for many systems, they may not be the best for a particular system.
The tuning procedure is a reiteration of the following general steps. Use these steps throughout the tuning procedure:
Make a move. See the Go (G) command for making moves.
View the plotted move. See Plots for more information. Viewing the plot will help you determine which parameters must be changed.
Change a parameter. See Parameter Area for information on changing parameters in the RMC.
Repeat these steps using the same move until the parameter is at the desired value. See Using Stored Commands for repeating moves.
Use the Sum of Errors Squared in the RMCWin plotting utility to determine how the last parameter change affected the system. The Sum of Errors Squared indicates how closely the Actual Position is tracking the Target Position. If this number decreases significantly, the last parameter change was good. If this number increases significantly, the last parameter change was bad.
Remember, that in order to use the Sum of Errors Squared to compare moves, the moves must be identical.
Begin the tuning procedure with long, slow moves and low Accelerations. This will prevent you from losing control of and potentially damaging the system.
To obtain the greatest tuning precision, use the shortest Plot Time possible. This will spread the move across the entire plot window and allow you to see precisely how the system is responding.
You may want to turn off some of the Auto Stop bits. The Auto Stop turns off the Drive if an error occurs. In the initial stages of tuning, a Following Error or other error may occur, causing an undesired halt. Setting these bits to "Status Only" will make the RMC ignore the errors so you can tune the axis. Remember to set these bits to either "Soft Stop" or "Hard Stop" when you have gained sufficient control of the axis. This may not be possible on some systems because of safety concerns.
When changing the parameters, remember that they are not updated in the RMC until the Set Parameters (P) command is issued. They are not stored into the RMC Flash memory until the Update Flash command is issued.
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