Introduction
Npaq MR Hardware Manual
Chapter 1: Introduction
Aerotech’s Npaq MR is a 3U height, 19” wide, rack-mountable, intelligent drive chassis, that consists of up
to eight ultra-compact PWM and Linear network digital drives providing up to eight axes of motion. Each
drive provides deterministic behavior, auto-identification, and easy software setup. High performance double
precision floating point DSP controls the digital PID and current loops. All system configuration is done using
software-settable parameters, including control loop gains and system safety functions.
Communicate with the PC with a standard commercial FireWire communication bus. I/O options are
configurable per axis and include a 16 channel digital I/O interface (8 inputs and 8 outputs), one analog input,
one analog output, and a single axis Position Synchronized Output (PSO) signal. Other features and options
available with the MR drive chassis include: an external joystick connection port, integral encoder resolution
multiplication, and integral emergency stop components.
N O T E :
The Npaq MR can contain a mix of multiple discrete ML and MP drives. When using the A3200
software, the drives inside the Npaq MR will appear as if they were individual drives on the network.
Motion and I/O commands on axes within the Npaq MR are programmed in the same manner as would be
done for discrete units.
AEROTECH.
COM
ON
OFF
Npaq MR
FEEDBACK
COMMUNICATIONS
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EXT DRIVE
RS232
AUX ENCODER
JOYSTICK
ESTOP
MOTOR
DIGITAL / ANALOG IO
Power Switch / Circuit Breaker
Motor Output
AC Power Input
Digital / Analog IO
Motor Feedback
Auxiliary Encoder
ESTOP
Joystick
FireWire
Figure 1-1:
Chassis Layout
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Chapter 1
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