Product Release Notice for KINGSTAR 3.8

von | Mrz 27, 2020

General Availability Release Date March 30, 2020

KINGSTAR is an all-software, complete “plug-and-play” PC-based Machine Automation platform for IoT and Industry 4.0. Key pre-tested and pre-integrated industrial machine components include software-based motion control, machine vision, programmable logic controller (PLC) and the industry’s only plug-and-play EtherCAT master that auto-discovers any vendor’s EtherCAT drive, IO or device and auto-configures the EtherCAT environment at startup. Built on the EtherCAT standard and supported by a real-time 64-bit Windows operating-system (RTOS) from IntervalZero, KINGSTAR empowers engineers to design, develop and integrate machine control applications or a system of controllers on a single Industrial PC. The KINGSTAR platform can replace all hardware with software-only motion controllers and machine vision positioning systems, quickly and cost-effectively.

There are two product lines – KINGSTAR Motion and KINGSTAR Fieldbus:

KINGSTAR Motion replaces hardware motion cards with an all-software solution that creates PC-based machine controllers for premium precision and performance.
KINGSTAR Fieldbus offers support for CANopen over EtherCAT and simplifies configuration of EtherCAT networks with its unique plug-and-play approach.

KINGSTAR Motion

New Features

  • Adds velocity and path blending support to KINGSTAR Motion. [KS-1830]
  • Adds the ability to set the EtherCAT cycle time in KINGSTAR LogicLab.

Updates

  • Includes RTX64 3.7.1 [KS-1900]

Resolved Issues

  • Resolves an issue regarding MC_MoveVelocity jumping to target velocity without proper interpolation when ContinuousUpdate is TRUE, and the velocity is the same as the last target velocity but the direction is opposite. [KS-1775]
  • Resolves an issue where the value for ControlMode is set to -1 under the following scenarios: [KS-1803]
    • Enable Modes of Operation using EnableSynchronizedControlMode, so the control mode can be changed through PDO.
    • Connect to a drive that only allows the control mode to be changed after servo on, such as KINCO FN880 or OMRON R88D-KN04H-ECT.
    • Get the control mode before servo-on.
  • Resolves an issue regarding velocity jumps potentially occurring at the conjunction of two adjacent commands in group motion. [KS-1880]
  • Resolves an issue regarding MC_ProbeTrigger, MC_TouchProbe’s Done becoming instantly TRUE when MC_TouchProbe is executed with a Rising edge. This would cause Homing Latch to not work properly. [KS-1949]
  • Resolves an issue regarding the creation of KSLogSpace shared memory caused a blue screen error. [KS-1956]
  • Resolves an issue regarding axis and axis group’s states being incorrect when a group motion command reports an error during initialization. [KS-1957]
  • Resolves an issue regarding MC_MoveLinearRelativeEx not being able to move simulated axes, even if there was no hardware alarm. [KS-1979]
  • Improves the documentation explaining the definitions of AuxPoint and EndPoint of MC_MoveCircularRelative, MC_ MoveCircularAdditive, MC_MoveHelicalRelative, and MC_MoveHelicalAdditive in mcRadius mode. [KS-1984]
  • Resolves an issue regarding group motion not always being completed. [KS-1985]
  • Resolves an issue in KINGSTAR LogicLab where German decimal and thousands separators cause numbers to be parsed incorrectly. [KS-1996]
  • Resolves an issue in KINGSTAR LogicLab regarding MC_Jog, MC_Inch, MC_GroupJog, and MC_GroupInch displaying a WrongQueueIndex if the Forward or Backward signal was TRUE in the first cycle of the function block. [KS-1933]
  • Resolves an issue in KINGSTAR LogicLab where the indexes of axes or I/O modules were not changed after modifying them from the user interface. [KS-1962]
  • Resolves an issue regarding the KINGSTAR Demo failing on startup if the axes are already enabled and KINGSTAR is running. [KS-1419]

    KINGSTAR Fieldbus

    Updates

    • Includes RTX64 3.7.1 [KS-1900]

    Resolved Issues

    • Resolves an issue were File Access over EtherCAT (FoE) was not working if a Bootstrap is
      required. [KS-1792]
    • Adds missing functions RtEcatSetDcMasterShift and RtEcatSetDcCheck to the coe64ksm library. [KS-1916]

    Hardware Support

    KINGSTAR Motion & KINGSTAR EtherCAT have added out-of-the-box support for the following new hardware. See the KINGSTAR Supported Hardware document for a full list of hardware supported by KINGSTAR.

    Servo drives

    • ESTUN ProNet Summa ED3S [KS-1804]

    Stepper drives

    • Fastech Ezi-SERVO II 4X EtherCAT [KS-1845]
    • Fastech Ezi-Step II EtherCAT [KS-1845]

    EtherCAT I/O modules

    • Beckhoff EL3751 [KS-1736]
    • Fastech Ezi-IO EtherCAT [KS-1845]

    Availability

    KINGSTAR 3.8 Motion and KINGSTAR Fieldbus are available beginning March 30, 2020, through Partners and by contacting KINGSTAR Sales info@KINGSTAR.com. or (781) 996-4481.

    We welcome your comments and feedback. If you have any recommendations or wish to suggest product enhancements, please contact Product Management at: ProductManager@KINGSTAR.com.

    Terri Hawker heads IntervalZero’s Product Management initiatives and chairs the company’s Development Committee (DevCom), which guides overall product development strategy and approves the roadmap for the company’s flagship hard real-time software products, RTX64 and RTX. Terri establishes the product requirements for each release of RTX64 and RTX by carefully assessing market trends and forces; by considering customers’ product enhancement requests and their product feedback; and by consulting regularly with the customers’ senior leadership as well as sales and R&D executives. She shepherds the feature set through the agile product development process all the way through product delivery from engineering to manufacturing.