Anyone have documentation or examples for NI SoftMotion Controller?

[cgibson]

Hi Folks,

I am working on a legacy project. It is in LabVIEW 2009 and is meant to run on a cRIO 9014. 

It communicates to a servo controller over CANBus using the NI SoftMotion Controller library.

We are trying to swap out the servo controller with one that is currently available instead of being obsolete. This seems to work fine, except that the data we get back from the new servo controller does not match the data we get back from the old servo controller. So, we want to check what channel the data is coming from and possibly correct it for working with the new controller.

Here then is the problem. It is completely non-obvious how the channels are set by the software. 

I have been looking for documentation or examples of the NI SoftMotion Controller library so that I can find out how the channels are being set. I have been talking to NI Tech Support about this and they tell me the NI SoftMotion Controller is completely obsolete. They appear to no longer have what I need. 

The development computer I have does not appear to have this installed on it. Instead, the main library, a llb file, was backed up in the software repo as part of the software. This means we can still compile the project, but that we don't have the other support that came with the NI SoftMotion Controller. 

Does anyone out there remember the NI SoftMotion Controller Library and how it worked? Do you have examples or documentation?

Thanks!

[ZYOng]

What NI hardware are you using to control your servo?

The NI SoftMotion Module does not work over CAN bus. It is either NI C Series Motion module or EtherCAT. See Software Required for SoftMotion Hardware

[softball]

Hi

NI once had a FTP server. Nowadays, most of its content is available here :

https://download.ni.com/#support/motion/

There seems to be a lot of 'everything'. But maybe too old.

With active SSP or a subscription you can still download 2009 software :

https://www.ni.com/en/support/downloads/software-products/download.labview-softmotion-module.html

Regards

[Bob_Schor]

Do a Web search for "TENET E-Motion".  I think they know about NI's Soft Motion (they may have been some of the NI Developers).  John Wu seems particularly knowledgable.

Bob Schor

[cgibson]

NI SoftMotion Controller is distinct software from the SoftMotion module. The NI SoftMotion Controller did support CAN. Here is an excerpt from the readme file that I found in the link softball posted:

NI SoftMotion Controller 2.1 ReadMe

---

The NI SoftMotion Controller is a software solution that uses standard PC-based platforms and open standards to connect intelligent drives to a real-time host and control them programmatically. In this architecture, the firmware components of the motion controller run on a real-time host and all I/O is implemented on the drives. This separation of I/O from the motion controller firmware components helps to lower system cost and improve reliability by improving connectivity. The CANopen standard is used to connect these components to third-party drives that use CANopen, such as the Copley Controls Accelnet drive.

You can use LabVIEW, C, LabWindows™/CVI™, or Visual Basic development platforms with the NI SoftMotion Controller.

The NI SoftMotion Controller is compatible with the following National Instruments software:

• LabVIEW 8.0 or later Real-Time Module.
• Motion Assistant 2.0 or later graphical prototyping software.
• NI-Motion 7.5 or later driver software.
• NI-CAN 2.5 or later driver software.

[cgibson]

This is great!. I found an installer for the SoftMotion controller software. I am digging in to the examples folder in the hopes of finding some info. Thanks!