PT Actuator 5DOF Motion System Review Part 2 “Electronics/Wiring”

Final thoughts on getting the electronics, wiring, cabling, and basic system parameters setup for the PT Actuator 5DOF motion system. This is part two of a three part review I am doing on this system. In the part one video I did the motion system build. The PT actuator 5DOF system uses the AASD-15A servo drivers. They are a commonly used driver solution for driving actuator servo motors. They were easy to install and setting up the required parameters for driving the
PT Actuator servos was not very difficult. The cabling and wiring used in this kit was very well sorted. Once you begin the process of connecting the power cables and wiring, it was just a matter of repeating the hookups as you went
along. All the wiring and cable terminations and connections were well done with nice attention to detail. I especially liked the aviation style power and data connectors that run between the servo motors and servo drives. Another great plus is that PT actuator actually uses a grounded shielding solution on the power cables. This will help mitigate any EMI/RFI interference that can an issue with so many electric motors and circuit boards running in close proximity to each other. And this is not the only example of PT Actuator doing their part to prevent this. They have made a solid metal enclosure for the servo drives. That again help shield the rest of your cockpits electronics from EMI/RFI interference. While giving the servo drives protection and ventilation to keep them cool and out of harm’s way. The PT actuator AASD-15A controller is a nice compact unit. Using the Thanos controller board for its PC interface. This board has a good
feature set, like spike filtering, and onboard actuator control abilities that can be used without being hooked up to a PC. It easily mounted to the servo drive enclosure so you will still have access to it once all of the cable routing and
management are complete. Speaking of which it’s nice that PT Actuator thought of that also when designing this kit. The wiring duck included here, make cable management a lot easier that it would have been without it. I think PT Actuator has done their homework and come with a good electronics and wiring solution to complement what I have seen of this system so far. They have made something that could be very difficult to figure out and construct much easier for the average person to do. Again this is Part two of a three part review series of the PT 5DOF motion system. In Part three we will be setting up the software components and of doing some real time tuning and driving.