Soft Servo Systems, Inc. has developed a unique soft motion/soft CNC technology that provides the basis for superior general motion control and CNC solutions. This innovative and proprietary PC-based technology has an open architecture that reduces or eliminates (depending upon which servo platform you choose) hardware requirements by emphasizing software components and by taking advantage of a computer's CPU.

We have also developed our original soft PLC technology for machine control, providing the basis for the independent LadderWorks PLC package provided with all of our general motion control and CNC products. LadderWorks PLC includes a real-time soft PLC engine for industry-standard ladder logic control and execution of PLC sequence programs. Soft motion is integrated with soft PLC to provide a single motion/machine control application.

Our soft motion technology fully exploits the super-fast, super-precise (double-precision floating point) computation power of today's ordinary PCs — computation power which, until recently, was available only with a supercomputer. Our products harness the ever-improving CPUs in computers: as the speed and power of CPUs increases, so does the speed and power of a Soft Servo Systems motion control or CNC system.

Unlike other suppliers of motion control or CNC products who call themselves PC-based but use the PC only as the operator’s interface and still use expensive motion control boards, we take advantage of the true power and cost savings of the PC.

The core of our technology is real-time motion control software built on a hard real-time kernel for Windows. This multi-tasking/multi-thread real-time software architecture enables the time-critical CNC servo control programs to run on a single host CPU.

The host CPU performs all real-time servo and CNC tasks, including feedback loops, accelerations/decelerations, multi-axis coordination, PLC, and G code processing and NC path generation for CNC, as well as providing the graphical user interface, program interpreting/loading, file management, data processing and network communications, all simultaneously. The multi-axis high-speed servo loops are entirely closed within this single CPU and provide extremely fast and accurate motion control.

Soft Servo Systems' soft motion technology enables customers to build their own products without depending on the proprietary information and black box technology provided by motion control vendors and NC vendors. We believe that factory automation vendors and machine tool builders know the real needs in their fields much better than motion control and NC vendors. Our soft motion technology allows users to implement their unique product concepts and use their valuable know-how to build the best possible motion control products.

• CPU:
  • Minimum: Intel Pentium III 1 GHz or equivalent
  • Suggested and minimum for 3D-DLACC (three-dimensional dynamic look-ahead contour control): Intel Pentium IV 2 GHz or faster
    
    
• Random Access Memory (RAM): 256 MB (512 MB suggested)
  
  
• Hard disk space: 30 MB
  
  
• ISA slot(s), PCI slot(s) and/or PC104 stacking connector, depending on the servo platform and hardware options [NOTE: PCI slots must be "regular" PCI slots; "low profile" PCI slots do not provide sufficient space for any of the PCI adapter boards used by Soft Servo Systems' products.]
  
  
• Ethernet connection: 10 MB/sec or 100 MB/sec
• An active, enabled, properly configured Ethernet port with a properly configured network card device driver. THE ETHERNET CONNECTION MUST NOT BE DISABLED.
• You do not need an actual Ethernet cable plugged in or connected to a LAN or to the Internet, just an active Ethernet port.
  
  
• Display:
  • 256-color graphic adapter
  • Color monitor capable of 800 x 600 minimum pixel resolution (1024 x 768 recommended)
  • Recommended video chips: ATI or nVidia
  • Video chips that are known to be incompatible with Soft Servo Systems' products: S3, SMI Lynx, Trident and VIA [NOTE: This list of video chips is not comprehensive; any video chip other than our recommended video chips should be tested with RTX.]
    
    
• One of the following HAL types must be supported:
  • PC Compatible EISA/ISA HAL
  • ACPI Compatible EISA/ISA HAL
  • MPS 1.4 - APIC platform HAL
  • ACPI 1.0 - APIC Platform UP
  • ACPI 1.0 - APIC Platform MP
  • ACPI x86 Platform

NOTE: Some hardware configurations are not supported by RTX installations and therefore are not supported by ServoWorks CNC installations: Compaq AP400, Dell 7000 portables, HP Kayak and Alpha systems.

• Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4, Microsoft Windows XP (Professional Edition) with Service Pack 2, or Microsoft Windows XPe.
  
  [NOTE: Service Pack 2 is required for Windows XP; Service Pack 3 for Windows XP is not required, but is compatible if you are running RTX 8.1 with Service Pack 1 for RTX 8.1. Your SMP or ServoWorks CNC product will not run on a PC with Windows XP Service Pack 3 and any of the following versions of RTX: RTX 7.x, RTX 6.x, RTX 5.x or earlier.]
  
  
• Administrator privileges (which allow access to system settings)
  
  
• Internet Explorer 5.01 or higher
  
  
• One of the following standard Microsoft HALs must be installed:
• Standard PC
• Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC
• MPS Multiprocessor PC
• ACPI Uniprocessor PC
• ACPI Multiprocessor PC
• ACPI x86-based PC
  
  
• If you are running SMP or ServoWorks CNC software on a computer with a dual-core CPU, you must have the latest version of the real-time extension for the Windows operating system.

Depending upon your servo interface system, the location of the PCI slot, ISA slot or PC104 stacking connector of your PC adapter card(s), the location of the motherboard slot, and the hardware and software configuration, there is the potential that some PC functions might have to be disabled due to IRQ conflicts. These functions include, but are not limited to: USB, Ethernet, sound, modem, and some hardware components.

For the Panasonic Realtime Express (RTEX), MECHATROLINK or SSCNET interface systems, which work with optional VersioBus I/O that requires a VersioBus adapter board (ISA, PCI or PC104), we recommend against using two PCI boards. This combination is possible, but not recommended, due to possible issues with a PC's configuration. Therefore, for the MECHATROLINK interface system, we recommend using the NT110 (MECHATROLINK PCI board) with the FP-85 (VersioBus ISA board) OR using the NT115 (MECHATROLINK ISA board) with the FP-105 (VersioBus PCI board). For the RTEX and SSCNET interface systems (which must use a PCI board for the RTEX or SSCNET servo network), we recommend using the FP-85 (VersioBus ISA board) OR the FP-114 (VersioBus PC104 board) for optional VersioBus I/O.

Soft Servo Systems recommends consulting with our sales staff prior to purchasing a PC for your Soft Servo Systems product.