Separate cam controller reduces costs of a PLC

Electronic cam controllers are used wherever fast recurring switching sequences are required. If this time-critical function is integrated in a PLC system, the cycle time of this PLC has to be extremely short. This highly specialized cam function defines the processing power and consequently the price of the PLC you have to select. Using a separate, electronic cam controller like the Ventura FIO CAM Control by KUHNKE can reduce significantly the overall costs for machine control. Data transfer between the PLC and cam controller is effected simply via field bus like CAN and EtherCAT®.

With a Ventura FIO CAM Control, the latest cam controller by KUHNKE, up to 24 cam tracks with 4 cams each can be used. Thanks to EtherCAT® and CAN interface decentralized absolute encoders can also be used. Cam programming can be affected at the device itself or with the higher-level control. Parameterization of the cam controller is extremely easy and user friendly. Combining several cams to one cam track or setting the dead time correction as well as assigning the parameters to the cam controllers is carried out via a graphical user interface.

With this extremely fast, distributed cam controller KUHNKE presents a new generation of function modules: able to work self-contained and completely independently on the one hand and in a field bus network on site on the other. Aside from CANopen the Ventura FIO CAM Control also offers the fast, real time Ethernet protocol EtherCAT®. It’s therefore very easy to program and use the module as a decentralized unit. It can be extended with additional modules of the Ventura FIO series like digital or analogue in- and outputs without any difficulty. Of course the cam controller modules can – like all FIO modules – also be used with the modular PLC Ventura Skaleo. Splitting up the processor load between PLC and cam controller in one control unit is thus used to maximum advantage.