Applied Motion RS-232 - Manual (Page 226)

226 920-0002 Rev. I
2/2013
Host Command Reference
Data Registers
Many of the commands listed in this reference function by transferring data to a drive for later use. These
data values are stored in data registers within the drive and remain there until new commands change the
values or power is removed from the drive. For example, if you send the Velocity command “VE10”, a maximum
move speed of 10 rev/sec is placed in the data register for velocity. You can then execute as many FL (Feed to
Length), FP (Feed to Position) or FS (Feed to Sensor) move commands as you’d like without sending another VE
command: the move speed of 10 rev/sec will remain in the velocity data register until you change it.
In addition to the data register for velocity, there are registers for move acceleration (AC command, “A”
register), deceleration (DE command, “B” register) and move distance (DI command, “D” register). There are also
registers for limit sensors (DL command), motor current (CC command), encoder resolution (ER command), motor
position (SP command) and encoder position (EP command). There are 75 data registers in all. See the following
Data Register Assignments section for a complete listing of data registers available in your drive.
Not all commands function by transferring a data value into a register. Conversely, not all data registers are
associated with a command. To access data registers that are not associated with a command, you can use a
register’s unique character assignment. See the Data Register Assignments on the following pages for a listing of
data registers and their character assignments. When accessing a data register using its character assignment
you use the RL (Register Load Immediate) or RX (Register Load Buffered) commands. These commands allow
you to load data values into a register as well as read back the contents of a data register. For example, we set
the move speed to 10 rev/sec in the first paragraph of this page by using the velocity command “VE10”. You can
accomplish the same thing by using the RL command and the character assignment for the velocity data register,
“V”. By sending “RLV2400” to the drive (see units of “V” register in Data Register Assignments section) you set
the move speed to 10 rev/sec.
There are four categories of data registers available with your drive: Read-Only, Read/Write, User-Defined,
and Storage. The last two categories, User-Defined and Storage, are only for use with Q drives.
Read-Only data registers
Read-Only data registers are predefined registers that contain information about drive parameters,
settings, and states. These include registers for commanded current, encoder position, analog input levels, drive
temperature, internal bus voltage, and more. You cannot transfer data values to a Read-Only data register; you
can only read the contents of them (see RL and RX commands). Read-Only registers are assigned to lower-case
letters.
Read/Write data registers
Read/Write data registers are predefined registers that contain drive and move parameters that can be set
by the user. These parameters include acceleration rate, velocity, move distance, continuous current setting, peak
current setting, and more. Many of the Read/Write registers are associated with a particular command, so you
can read their contents or load data into them with RL, RX, or that parameter’s particular command. Read/Write
registers are assigned to upper-case letters.
User-Defined data registers
User-Defined data registers are read/write registers that are not predefined. These registers are only
used with Q drives. They allow you to create more flexible and powerful Q programs through math functions,
incrementing and decrementing, conditional processing, and more. These registers are assigned to single-digit
numbers and other ASCII characters.
Storage data registers
Each Q drive comes with 100 non-volatile Storage data registers, which can be used to save the contents
of other data registers to non-volatile memory. For example, since none of the User-Defined data registers are
non-volatile, a user may want to save the values of some of these registers to memory. This can be done by
transferring their values to Storage registers (called Writing) before power down of the drive. Then at the next