Lincoln Electric IM745 POWER WAVE 355 - Manual (Page 12)

A-5 INSTALLATION
POWER WAVE 355
A-5
SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
The POWER WAVE 355 and Power Feed family of
wire feeder products utilize a digital communication
system called Linc-Net. Simply put, Linc-Net allows
large amounts of information to be passed at very
high speeds between components (nodes) in the sys-
tem. The system requires only two wires for communi-
cation, and because of its bus-like structure, the com-
ponents may be connected to the network in any
order, thus simplifying the system set-up.
Each "system" must contain only one power source.
The power source may be connected to a maximum
of four feeder groups. Each group containing one
user interface (UI), and up to seven Feed Heads
(FH). SEE FIGURE A.1. The UI controls all of the
FH
’ s of that group. The UI ’ s and FH ’ s are assigned to
groups by setting a code on the DIP switches mount-
ed on their individual control boards. For example all
of the FH
’ s to be controlled by a given UI must have
their "Group ID" switches set to the same group num-
ber as the UI. In addition, each FH must be assigned
a separate FH number within that group. See the sys-
tem set-up section for further details.
From a network perspective, each component in the
system is considered a separate node, regardless of
its physical location. For example, even though a UI
and FH may be physically mounted together, they are
still viewed as separate pieces (nodes) by the net-
work, and can only communicate via Linc-Net. The
Linc-Net connection is generally made external
through the Linc-Net Control Cable, but can also be
made internally, as with the Power Feed 10 bench
model feeder.
The most common Linc-Net configuration (called a
simple system) consists of one power source, one
user interface and one feeder. Under these circum-
stances the group and feed head ID DIP switches are
ignored and the system will function regardless of
their position. The same is true for the minimum sys-
tem consisting of a power source and one UI
(Example: a stick welding system).
FIGURE A.1 System Model
355