Galil Motion Control, Inc. · 800-377-6329 · www.galilmc.com
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ALS has had test units running in
Europe and the United States for more
than a year without a single Galil con-
troller failure. According to Nagle, "We
never had a Galil problem during our
start-up. Galil performed brilliantly."
Incorporated in 1994, ALS is locat-
ed in Troy, Michigan.
reviously, artificial limbs had to
be made by hand using casting
and molds. The ALS machine
has automated the procedure using
software, PCs, and motion control.
ALS's prosthetic machine consists
of three parts: a data collection mea-
surement device that digitizes the exact
coordinates of a plaster cast taken from
the patient; an AutoSulpt CAD pro-
gram where the Prosthetist creates an
artificial limb from the digitized
model; and a three-axis CNC mill that
cuts the prosthetic device from a block
of plaster. All electronics are inside the
PC and protected from the dusty cut-
ting environment.
Galil's high-precision DMC-1040
four-axis motion controller is used in
two parts of the machine. One axis
takes readings from the encoder that is
measuring the position coordinates in
the digitizer. The three additional axes
are used to control the XYZ axes of the
router. Directed by the DMC-1040, the
router cuts the exact artificial limb
specified from a block of plaster.
The company chose a Galil motion
The ALS Series 3XL Carver
manuafactures artificial limbs to
exact specifications.
Active Life Sciences and Galil
Automate Creation of Artificial Limbs.
Active Life Sciences (ALS) is using state-of-the-art technologies to
build a machine that produces prosthetic devices quickly and to exacting
specifications. Chief among the machine's advanced products is Galil's
high precision DMC-1040 motion controller.
controller because of its flexibility and
many features available in one card. The
prosthetic machine also utilizes the Galil
96-bit I/O expansion board so that all
I/O is handled by the motion controller.
The linear interpolation mode of the
Galil controller mimics the position data
format from the digitizer. New position
coordinates can be sent ahead of the
motion for the smooth following of
intricate contours. The controller's speed
and precision are essential to the process.
Also important is the ease in pro-
gramming all Galil's controllers.
Because of this feature, ALS can claim
that its machine is easy to run and
requires no special computer program-
ming. The ALS machine uses C++ at
the front end to feed real time data to
the motion controller. The Galil pro-
gram memory runs in the background
to handle I/O events, freeing the PC
for other tasks.
When selecting a motion controller
for its new machine, ALS wanted a
"quality controller from an established
vendor for current and future support,"
according to Shashikant Nagle of ALS.
"We never had a Galil problem during our start-up.
Galil performed brilliantly."
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