Sinamics S120 Drive Commissioning Using Starter

Karthik Muthineni
6 min readFeb 11, 2021

This blog discusses about Sinamics S120 drive commissioning using Starter software. In our example, a drive unit is to be assembled for a motor. The following components are required for the drive unit:

  1. Control Unit CU 310–2PN
  2. Power Module PM240–2
  3. Synchronous Motor of 1FK7 Family
  4. Motion Connect Drive-Cliq Cable
  5. Motion Connect Power Cable
  6. Memory Card

The following prerequisites must be fulfilled before you start commissioning:

  1. The CompactFlash Card with firmware must be inserted.
  2. The components are wired by means of Drive–Cliq.
  3. The PROFINET interface Control Unit is connected to a PC via a PROFINET interface.
  4. The Starter commissioning tool must be installed on your PC.

For Starter software installation procedure, refer to SinamicsSoftware.

For hardware wiring of S120 components, refer to SinamicsHardware.

Creating the drive project ONLINE

To create the drive project ONLINE, carry out the following steps:

Step 1: Create a new project.

Open Starter and choose “Find drive units online…” as shown in Figure 1. The wizard guides you through the procedure for creating a new project.

Figure 1. Starter project wizard.

Enter the project name (e.g. ”Project_1”) and, if required, the author and a comment as shown in Figure 2 and click Continue.

Figure 2. Creating new project.

Step 2: Set up the PROFINET interface.

Enter the project name (e.g. ”Project_1”) and, if required, the author and a comment as shown in Figure 3. Click Continue.

Figure 3. Set PG/PC interface.

In this example, you require a PROFINET interface on the PC. The project wizard searches for the drive unit ONLINE and inserts it in the project. Once the drive unit has been found, the project wizard displays it in the preview screen as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Insert drive.

The project wizard displays a summary of the project as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Summary.

Step 3: ONLINE search for the stations (drive units)

Once you have created the project and entered the drive unit with its PROFINET address ONLINE, you have to enter the associated component topology and drive unit configuration ONLINE. Select the drive unit Drive_Unit_Adr10 in the project navigator and choose “Connect to target system” as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Connect to target device.

Step 4: Configure and enter the drive unit topology and configuration automatically.

In the project navigator, double–click “Automatic configuration” under the drive unit as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Automatic configuration.

Click “Start” as shown in Figure 8. Starter automatically searches for all drive unit components that are connected properly and then uploads them.

Figure 8. Start Automatic Configuration.

In the ”Drive object type” dialog box, choose Servo and click “create” as shown in Figure 9. The system now loads the data from RAM to ROM and to the PC.

Figure 9. Automatic commissioning.

Once the automatic commissioning is completed. In the project navigator, all the drive unit components that have been found are displayed with, for example, the Control Unit and Servo as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10. Automatic configuration.

Step 5: Configure the motor and check the topology that has been entered

In the project navigator, choose the Drives folder and double–click “Drive navigator” under the drive as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Drive navigator.

Click Device configuration to configure the drive motor. Click Carry out drive configuration as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12. Device configuration.

Configure drive parameters as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13a. Controller type
Figure 13b. Power Module type.
Figure 13c. Motor type.

The Drive-Cliq interface automatically selects the type of encoder, just click “next”.

Figure 13d. Encoder type.

In general, the telegram should be selected based on your application. In this example, the drive is configured to control based on position. For position-controlled application “[105] SIEMENS telegram” is best suitable.

Figure 13e. Telegram type.
Figure 13f. Summary.

Step 6: Save project

Save the project, click on “connect to selected target devices” and load to the configuration to the device by clicking “Download project to target system”.

Step 7: Open Control Panel

Once you have established a connection with the target system and loaded the project to the target system, a green plug icon appears in front of the drive unit and other configured components in the project navigator. This indicates that the project data in STARTER and the target system is consistent.

Double–click “Control panel” in the project navigator under Drive_1 > Commissioning as shown in Figure 14.

Figure 14. Control panel.

Click Assume control priority to connect the control panel to the drive interface as shown in Figure 15.

Figure 15. Assume control priority.

You can enter an application monitoring time as shown in Figure 16, which is the time that elapses between two setpoints before the sign–of–life monitoring function on the drive responds (fault 1910).

Figure 16. Monitoring time.

click the Enables field as shown in Figure 17, to set the commands for enabling the control words in the drive system.

Figure 17. Enable drive.

Before starting the motor, you have to enter a speed setpoint (e.g. 50 revolutions per minute), use the slider to set the setpoint in % as shown in Figure 18. Position your cursor on the slider, hold down the left mouse button, and set the speed to greater than 0%.

Figure 18. Drive on.

Move the slider for the speed slowly from 0 to 100%. The motor starts to rotate.

Plot the graph

Graph between motor parameters can be plotted using “Device trace” located in task bar as shown in Figure 19.

Figure 19. Device trace function.

The trace function window opens. Select the signals that you want to plot and press the play button as shown in Figure 20.

Figure 20. Select graph signals.

You can see the graph being plotted as shown in Figure 21.

Figure 21. Graph plot.
Sinamics S120 Drive Commissioning using Starter Software | Step by Step Procedure.

--

--