Top 10 Tips Things to Know About Motion Controllers

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Performance
Motion Devices

Performance Motion Devices, Inc (PMD) provides OEMs worldwide with innovative, high performance chip, card, and drive-based motion control solutions. With over 2.5 million installed axes, PMD has the motion control expertise to simplify customer's designs and lower overall costs. PMD products are used to control brush, brushless and stepping motors in the medical, commercial and industrial markets.

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MARKET SPOTLIGHT:

Motion Controllers

Tackling the motion controls for a new machine design is one of the more complex tasks a designer will face. The initial focus is often centered on selecting the motors that will be used to drive the hardware mechanisms. While this is certainly important, the mechanical system can only realize its full potential when mated with the right motion controller. But what is the right motion controller? There are many factors to consider, and some easy-to-apply guidelines will make the job easier. See what industry experts have to say about selecting a motion controller in the MSD article to the left. For "Top 10 Tips: Things to Know about Motion Controllers", see the Motion System Design Article (left).

-Learn about chip-based motion controllers-

-Learn about card-based motion controllers-

Selecting the Right Motor Type

In the modern world of automation three motor types dominate the scene; step motors, DC brush motors, and brushless DC motors. At first glance these motors seem to present drastically different control requirements to the designer. Some motors require encoders, and other vmotors must be externally commutated. Some motors are multi-phase devices and others are single phase. Many motion controllers can only handle one type of motor and using this type of controller may lead to the selection of just one motor type for the entire machine. Unfortunately, different sections of a given machine may benefit from different motor types. A better approach is to select the best motor type for each section of the machine and then look for a controller that can easily handle all of these motor types. Click here to learn more about choosing the right motor for your application.

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