Hello,
i am new to this board.
I saw in the past an impressive video about the “clearpath sd” motors of teknic.com
A wonder in exact positioning and speed.
https://www.teknic.com/products/clearpath-brushless-dc-servo-motors/clearpath-sd-stepper-replacement
Does odrive compare to it?
If not - where are the differences?
Best regards,
THaala
THaala, I have been using clearpath motors at work for awhile now, so here are my two cents with regards to the two.
Clearpath motors are a very good drop in solution to stepper motor replacements. They already come in nema 17,23,34 housings that again make them very good replacements. They use the same process that the odrive uses in that they have a built in encoder that keeps track of step and direction. This makes it very nice in stepper motor applications because you can still send them step/dir pulses, but the internal hardware makes sure that the motors do not lose ‘pulses’ like a stepper motor could.
Now this is the same thing that the odrive accomplishes with its closed loop system.
I would say that the biggest difference between the two would be that the clearpath products are ready to go and kind of plug and play commercial product. This comes with a decent price tag, but after you calibrate them once, they are very reliable and will do what you want them to do over and over. I would actually compare them directly to what the one axis odrive board might be when it is released.
If you have any specific question, feel free to ask away. I actually have 2 sitting on my desk right now.
wayneStock
They’re an industrial product with 2-3x the price tag compared to a development and hobby system. There’s no comparison really.
I would also like to add that clearpath motors are more geared towards standstill systems, cncs, lathes, linear systems, etc. For these systems the price is really not too different. After buying a quality stepper motor and separate driver, the price is pretty similar to a all in one clearpath motor.
wayneStock
Hello,
thank you much for response especially to wayneStock.
Its a little bit problematic to understand the differences.
is odrive more comparable to controllers like this:
In principle all three controls do the same - take bldc or servomotors and implement feedback via optocencoder. Am i wrong?
Is the clearpath invent that calibration procedure?
What are the pros and cons for odrive vs leadshine (or similar products)?
thank you in advance
THaala
Servomotor is a type of motor with position control. It’s unclear to me if that leadshine is an AC motor(leadshine site says yes)or DC, while ClearPaths are DC motors. Both types are brushless. The difference is in the type of voltage they use and control electronics.
In principle all servo motors operate the same, a motor(AC, DC, stepper, linear etc.), and encoder(many types exist, doesn’t matter here) that records the position and a drive with the electronics and logic to run the control loop. Mostly this is done by a separate drive but in ClearPaths case all this is built into the motor itself. All you need is power.
As far a pros and cons are, to me they seem to be:
odrive pros:
Cheap
Easy to hack
Motors are off the shelf and cheap, as are encoders.
Cons:
Hobby product, no professional support.
No finished software, lacks polishing and features.
No industrial standard controls.
Bugs
necessary to tinker and understand the basics of electronics and motors to use.(you can fry the board)
Not reliable enough(in the industrial sense).
Clearpath pros:
Industrial product.
Good support.
Various sizes and power available.
Good management software.
Autotuning and other useful features.
Rugged
Compact and safe design.
Easy to handle and use.
Cons:
Expensive(more than Chinese AC servos, for equivalent you have to spend 500 per motor, 250 per power supply and maybe some other bits as well, close to 1k per axis.)
Lack of many industrial controls(no ethercat, canopen or any other industrial standards, just step/dir and analog with an extra piece of hardware)
Just because they seem to do the same thing, doesn’t really mean they should be compared to each other.
Roiki’s overview is pretty spot on.
I would like to add a couple things though.
If you are wanting to get an entry level ClearPath motor, you could get one for around 250 bucks. You also do not need to get the Teknik specific power supply. It is recommended, but for all of my testing, I use a cheap $50 chinese power supply, and it works just fine.
Also, Roiki is correct in saying that the SD model only takes step/dir. However, Teknic does have two other models that interface in a different way.
These options do go up in price.
The MC (Motion Controller) model is really what is used in industrial control, and has a bit more options.
The SC option (Software Control) is really open to do whatever you want them to do. You do have to know some programming, but the SDK is pretty straight forward.
I understand not really comparing the two, as it is really apples and oranges, but since THaala wanted some background, I just wanted to throw some of this information your way.
wayneStock
No comparison? 2-3x the price tag?? Let’s see… Clearpath $260 dollars to get a motor, a controller, and an encoder in a mountable package. Odrive Pro $229 for just the controller. The motor and encoder are going to set you back another $75. With the exception of their larger motors the Clearpath solution is actually cheaper. The motor you’ll buy for your Odrive is likely going to be an external rotor hobby type (and if it isn’t then your costs run even higher to match anything Clearpath has); have fun modifying/building a funky case to mount the encoder. Then we haven’t even touched on the tuning software. ClearPath, intuitive, plug and play, fully automatic mechanics tuning. Odrive… not so much. Time to get a Clearpath motor up, tuned and ruinning: About 10 minutes (and 8 minutes of that is the tuning software doing its job). Odrive… if you’re not use to their software expect it to take all day.
I guess I agree… no comparison. ClearPath is hands down the winner. It’s less costly than an Odrive Pro solution by quite a bit, much easier to use and most of its performance specifications are better than Odrive. The only areas I’ll give a win to Odrive are: Better digital I/O capabilities (CAN bus, limit switch inputs).