COBRA Planar drives

The planar drive is a multi axis unit which like the single axis linear stepper motor detailed above incorporates the magnets and windings of the stepping motors within the moving carriage. The picture here on the left shows a 300mm square unit with a single carriage. 
 
It is presently possible to achieve sizes of up to 1500mm square and it is expected that larger sizes will be available in the near future. With the larger sizes comes the possibility of location more than one XY carriage on the plate surface. Multi carriage planar drives can either have the carriages driven together as if they were physically connected together or be independently driven.

The linear stepping motor provides the user high dynamics (up to 3m/s) coupled with smooth movement due to micro-stepping. It is able to move large loads up to 1,600N with high accuracy (±0.05mm) and repeatability. As there are no belts or lead screws there is only the friction of the cables and the inertia of the carriage to overcome. There are presently ten different sizes of linear stepping motor available starting with the type: 301 (20N load) up to the type: 1802 (1,600N load). The steel or stainless steel stator can be supplied in various sizes up to 6,500mm with the type: 1802. Dependant upon the length of stator supplied it is possible to have more than one carriage on the same stator. In this case the carriages can either be driven together as if they were physically connected to each other or be driven independently. For more information please telephone us on +44(0)161 343 1884 or e-mail us at sales@acpd.co.uk