Features and Usage

This software simulates the motional behavior of a system with a slide table. The system consists of a DC motor, gearbox, lead screw and table. The window has three sub-windows for graphs, 2D animations and legends. The graph sub-window shows the slide table’s motional behavior and the 2D window displays the table's motion. The default values of the data can be changed in the text boxes.

The simulator runs when the RUN button is clicked. This can be repeated with the same or different parameter settings. By clicking the CLEAR SCREEN button, the displayed graphs will disappear. When the EXIT button is clicked, the program will end.

When the table touches the limit switch, the applied voltage is turned off and the motor stops immediately. A horizontal red line indicating  the switch position will appear in the graph sub-window after the switch is touched. The difference between the table position and this red line is the overshoot.

The simulation time (tMax) can be set at any value. The abscissa (or time axis) is divided into scale divisions of one-tenth of tMax.   If you wish to observe the oscillatory behavior carefully, set t at a value smaller than 0.0001s and select a short tMax.

The graph for the motor’s angular position (pink) is hidden behind that for the lead's angular position (light green).  The ordinate on left represents motor current, while that on right shows the table position.

Compilation

This software can be compiled with Microsoft Basic ver.5.0 or a later version. We wrote our software with Microsoft Visual Basic ver.5.0 (Japanese version).
 

Availability

Target specifications for Windows 95 and 98 are listed below. Windows NT4 requires an additional 8MB RAM. Note that our software is not supported on Windows 3.1 and NT 3.51.
 

Preferred Specs

Pentium-100 or better
16MB RAM
5Mb hard disk space
High Color display adapter@800x600
 

Thank you very much for your interest in our software.