Products >> LinkMotion for Galil Boards

What Is It?

LinkMotion is a revolutionary new product from Solustan, which guarantees to save you time and money. LinkMotion is a 32 bit driver software compatible with Microsoft Windows XP. Once set and initialized, LinkMotion hides in the background just like a regular printer driver.

Galil Motion Control (www.galilmc.com) builds motion controller boards in various form factors. The products are proven and reliable. These products are known to control multiple axis with step or servo motors using open or close loop configurations. Galil motion boards are used in many applications throughout the world.

Galil supplies a complete library of routines that can be embedded into your customized application for controlling the behavior of the machine interfaced to the controller board.

How Does It Work?

Writing a customized application may mean one or more of the following:

• It could become a big and an expensive project
• If the project was not developed in-house, it might be difficult to manage, control, and enhance the features of the application.
• Continuous development is necessary to add features, functions, and bug fixes.
• Competitive pressures and technology advancements require continuous efforts and funds for the software development.
• Could become a drain on company's profitability.
• Software support has always been a cost center, never a profit center.

So, why write a customized application? Do what you do the best - build machines. Wouldn't it be great to use proven motion control boards and let your customers use powerful, off-the-shelf applications to control your machines.

Solustan's LinkMotion eliminates the need for customized application development for many of the motion control applications.

LinkMotion looks and feels like a printer driver within the PC/Windows architecture. Actually, it is a machine driver. It allows the user to design the job

How does a driver help you? For a simple example think about how your printer works. It doesn't matter what application you are using on your computer, you can always print to your printer. Whether its from your text editor, your web browser, your email program, or virtually any other application, you can always send documents out to your printer. This is because you have installed a 'driver' for your printer, that all programs can utilize. Shouldn't everything be this easy? Now, with Solustan's LinkMotion technology, it is.

You no longer have to worry about learning to use yet another piece of software. Are you comfortable with Corel DRAW, or perhaps a well-known CAD program? Wherever you are comfortable creating your designs, your work ends there. LinkMotion works with virtually any design program, so you can output your job straight from there!

What's the bottom line? LinkMotion works seamlessly in the background; you have no learning curve. Install the software and an off-the-shelf amplifier, and you're ready for production! Here's a list of just a few of the benefits you'll enjoy with LinkMotion.

Benefits

LinkMotion driver software eliminates the need for proprietary controller hardware. Repairing failed controller hardware could cost you a bundle.

Upgrading features of the driver is as easy as installing the latest version of LinkMotion driver software on your PC.

Older machines can be upgraded with Microsoft Windows' graphical interface and plethora of advantages can be had for your business. All of this is yours for a fraction of the cost of acquiring a new machine.

Many successful engraving businesses own more than one engraving machine from more than one system supplier. LinkMotion drives most of the older and newer engraving machines. You simply need to learn your favorite graphic design software. This job can be processed on any one of the different engraving machines as well as your laser engraving machine.

In almost all cases, LinkMotion drives the engraving machine faster than the original controller.

Specialized single line and multiline engraving fonts are offered optionally to perform fast and cost effective jobs.

LinkMotion works with clip arts, logos, AutoCAD, and graphics programs like Corel Draw! for engraving with the greatest of ease.

The only unique hardware required is motor drivers. They are available from many sources and are typically off-the-shelf items.

Preset but expandable materials menu, positioning of a job, keyboard controls for axis moves, Z axis or tool positioning, limit switch handling, acceleration/deceleration setup and control, spindle motor on/off control, and easy controls for speed, depth and dwell are provided.

Features

Boards Supported
All contemporary Galil motion control boards (Check with Galil for the compatibility for the older boards)

Board/Machine Initialization
Start job
Start shape
End shape
End job
Start pause
End pause
Abort job

General User Configurable Settings
Tool-engage speed (job federate)
Tool-disengaged speed (move speed)
Independent Z up and down speeds
Jog speed
Cut depth
Cut depth per pass
Z lift
Dwell (pause after Z up or down)Color/pen based job federate percentage
Enable/disable Z-axis motor movement
Reverse X, Y, and/or Z direction
Cylindrical support
Axis-independent table dimensions
Axis-independent motor steps-per-inch
Axis-independent maximum acceleration
Axis-independent maximum motor RPM
Axis-independent job-start offsets
Limit (home) switch support
Configurable start position (bottom left, top left, center, top center)
Display in inches, cm, or mm
Support for legacy MaxMotion application
Support for Corel Draw application
Support for AutoCAD application

Additional Available Features
0, 0, 0 counter position reset
"Print" from application using Windows printer-driver architecture
Vector-mode only
2 1/2D job design (Simultaneous X,Y interpolation with mutually exclusive Z up/down motion)
OEM mode (hides most configuration settings)
Job pause, resume, and cancel
Jog capability in X, Y, and/or Z axis
Real-time X,Y,Z position information (control-pad applet pops up in foreground during a job execution)
Demo mode