Lincoln Electric IM746 manual System Description, System Model

A-5 INSTALLATION A-5

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION

The POWER WAVE 405 and Power Feed family of products utilize a digital communication system called Linc-Net. Simply put, Linc-Net allows large amounts of information to be passed at very high speeds between components (nodes) in the system. The system requires only two wires for communication, and because of its bus-like structure, the components may be connected to the network in any order, thus simpli- fying the system set-up.

Each "system" must contain only one power source. The power source may be connected to a maximum of four feeder groups. Each group containing one user interface (UI), and up to seven Feed Heads (FH). SEE FIGURE A.1. The UI controls all of the FH’s of that group. The UI’s and FH’s are assigned to groups by setting a code on the DIP switches mounted on their individual control boards. For example all of the FH’s to be controlled by a given UI must have their "Group ID" switches set to the same group number as the UI. In addition, each FH must be assigned a separate FH number within that group. See the system set-up sec- tion for further details.

From a network perspective, each component in the system is considered a separate node, regardless of its physical location. For example, even though a UI and FH may be physically mounted together, they are still viewed as separate pieces (nodes) by the net- work, and can only communicate via Linc-Net. The Linc-Net connection is generally made external through the Linc-Net Control Cable, but can also be made internally, as with the PF-10 bench model feed- er.

The most common Linc-Net configuration (called a simple system) consists of one power source, one user interface and one feeder. Under these circum- stances the group and feed head ID DIP switches are ignored and the system will function regardless of their position. The same is true for the minimum sys- tem consisting of a power source and one UI (Example: a stick welding system).

System Model FIGURE A.1

405

POWER WAVE 405