The VisualMotion Functional Description manual describes VisualMotion software from its components to how it used for basic programming.

Start VisualMotion and, select Create a new project in the What do you want to do? Window. Opens automatically when VisualMotion is started.

This section provides a detailed description of the Motion Control system hardware components. Here below is the PPC control unit layout .

As indicated in the figure above, the display (8) provides information on the unit.
Press S1 (1) to view the firmware code, the serial protocol and the baud rate of the two communication ports “PROG” (10) and “COM” (11), the unit identification number, the IP address (in case of a PPC with an Ethernet port (13)) and the current state message.

The standard architecture includes some PPC control units (depending on the number of machine motors) connected by an optic fibre ring known as “Link Ring”. The cables are identical to the ones used to connect each PPC withthe drives of the Sercos ring. The Link Ring is used to share the master signal between the PPC’s. More specifically a PPC will be configured as the Link Ring Master (normally PPC#1) and the others as Link Ring Slaves (up to max. 32 PPC’s). PPC#1 generates a master signal through its virtual master 1 and makes it available on the Link Ring in a synchronous way. As a result all the drives, even those that are physically linked with the PPC#2….N, will receive the same master signal and all the machine motors will be perfectly synchronised.

During the machine shakedown, there are often motors to be installed or connected. In this case the drive does not detect the installed motor and generates a non-resettable alarm; as a result, the PPC programme cannot
run. The “Command Parking Axis” instruction solves this problem by setting the drive in “PA” mode. The drive will not check if the motor is connected and no alarm will be generated. To set the drive in “stand-by” mode, enter an icon in Visual Motion 10 and download it again. Open the program and select the Initialization Task in the upper-left side of the screen.