SPS 2021: Trinamic’s tiny board controls industry with Python

Intended to ease prototyping, the company’s TMCM-0960-MotionPy single-board computer (right) runs MicroPython on an Arm Cortex-M4, works over 6V to 50V, and includes CAN, RS485 and UART interfaces as well as GPIO headers. It offers 13 Python functions.

“Motor drive modules in the field or on the factory floor can be accessed with a simple Python script,” according to the company. “With an embedded processor and no operating system, this tiny module replaces single-board computers and application software for debugging. Visitors can learn how to examine the links between sensors, motor drives and actuators and use them to update and upload new scripts.”

Alongside this and other motion control product will be Trinamic’s industrial robotic end-of-arm tooling hardware (TMCM-1617-GRIP-REF) built around a brushless dc servo driver. It “shows how to shrink the size of gripper designs and is compatible with the inductance demanded of smaller electric motors in robotics, which presents a growing power management challenge for automation designers”, said the company.

The design includes multiple protocol stacks including IO-Link, MAX22000 configurable precision analogue input-output and MAX14906 quad-channel digital input-output to adjust the servo driver’s multiple modes.

SPS 2021 is in Nuremberg on 23-25 November. It takes place under Germany’s ‘2G’ anti-Covid-19 conditions, which mean visitors must be fully vaccinated against, or have recovered from, Covid-19. For those not attending, there is a parallel on-line exhibition.

Maxim and Trinamic will be in stand 5.128, adjacent to Analog Devices on 5.129.