After re-inventing the wheel one too many times, I finally decided to design a standardized component for test bench control. The result is the rotabench EPS Mod. 5 Revision 1b
- Drive Control: 24V Digital / ±10V Analog
- Sensor Support: Kistler 4503B (RS232)
- Connectivity: Ethernet & CAN-Bus, USB for Maintainance
- Power-Supply: 24 Volt DC
- Connectors: Wago 2091 Cage-Clamp
This PCB is engineered to control industrial drives via 24V digital I/O and ±10V analog I/O. It features native support for Kistler 4503B torque sensors (including integrated encoders) via RS232, and provides both Ethernet and CAN interfaces for seamless connection to a test bench control software.
The main purpose of this device is to eliminate the engineering overhead of creating a custom hardware abstraction layer for every new project. Instead, it serves as a turn-key solution that provides all essential features out of the box. By moving away from bespoke setups, engineering teams can bypass the complexities of low-level integration and focus immediately on their core testing objectives.
And this is how it looks like: the rotabench EPS Mod. 5 PCB in a control cabinet on my electric motor test bench.