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Custom & OEM · For OEMs, integrators and equipment builders
Custom motion platform, the machine and the controller that drives it.
A buyer who needs a custom platform is usually asking one of two questions. Can you build a machine for a load, a stroke or a room that no catalogue model fits? And can my software drive it the way my system needs? Each question has its own page. This one tells you which to open first and what you will find there.
Still comparing custom against standard? A configured catalogue machine is faster and cheaper whenever it fits. The routes section shows where the line falls.
custom six-axis platform on the load-test floor with its control cabinet beside it
Where to begin
A custom motion platform is two engineering problems, and each has its own page
The first problem is mechanical. Your load is heavier, taller or wider than a catalogue machine was drawn for, or your room is lower, or your stroke is longer. The second is software. Your system has to command the platform, read its state and know what it does when something goes wrong.
Most projects meet both problems, but not at the same time. The machine is sized first, because nothing about the interface can be fixed until the mechanism is known. The software side follows, and it is usually where the long-term cost of a supplier decision shows up — whoever wrote the controller decides what can still be changed three years later.
So the two pages are written for different readers. The platform page is for the engineer specifying the machine. The controller page is for whoever writes the code that drives it. The table below says which one answers your question first.
Size the machine first. Fix the interface second. Test both together.
Custom motion platform workflow linking mechanical design and controller/API integration to a combined factory acceptance test under load.
The 2-Page Starting Guide Read the second column until one row describes you
| Page | Start here when | What you will find | Send us first |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Custom & OEM Motion Platforms | No published machine carries your load, reaches your stroke, fits your room or matches your bandwidth — or you need the same machine built repeatedly for your own product | What can be changed on a platform, what each change takes from the rest, how a one-off is built and tested, what custom costs that a catalogue machine does not, and how repeat supply stays identical | Mass, centre-of-gravity height and inertia of the moving load, plus the motion it has to make |
|
Controller & API Integration | The mechanism is roughly settled and the question is how your software drives it, what it reports back, and what happens on a fault or a lost link | Four attachment points, the nine-module control stack, the SDK and demo projects, controller hardware families, the written coordinate convention, and how an existing platform can be re-controlled | What your host already outputs, in which units and frame, at what rate, over which link |
Not sure which applies? Most enquiries start on the platform page, because the machine has to exist before the interface can be frozen. If you already own a platform and only the controller is in question, go straight to the second page.
Question sits between the two? Describe the project in two sentences and the reply names the page →
Page 1 · The machine
Custom & OEM motion platforms: a machine sized to your load case, not picked from a list
This page is for the engineer who has a load, a motion and a room, and has not found a catalogue machine that fits all three. It explains what can be changed on a parallel platform, what each change costs somewhere else, and how a machine built once is still proven before it ships.
The idea it is built on is simple and usually ignored: on a motion platform no number changes on its own. Ask for more payload and the actuators grow, the legs get heavier, the first structural mode falls and the bandwidth goes with it. A supplier who quotes a heavier machine at the same speed has skipped a step, and the page shows which one.
It also covers the commercial side that most bespoke-machine suppliers leave blank. A single unit is a normal order. Engineering is priced as its own line before design starts. And where a machine will be bought repeatedly for a product you sell, the first unit is built under configuration control so the twelfth behaves like the first.
A custom platform is a budget you spend, not a list of options you add.
Ballast built to the height and inertia the real payload will have, not stacked flat on the table.
What that page covers Six sections, one fact from each
Payload is three numbers
The same 500 kg mounted 1.2 m above the table instead of 0.3 m asks the actuators for four times the moment under the same acceleration.
Stroke is bought with diameter
Double a leg’s length and its buckling capacity falls to a quarter. Recovering it takes a tube about 41 % wider and several times heavier.
Mass moves the frequency
Add 500 kg to a 920 kg moving assembly and an 18 Hz first mode drops to about 14.5 Hz. Getting it back is a structural change, not a bigger motor.
What we change, and what we will not
Three lists: what is ours to move, what stays catalogue on purpose so you can source spares anywhere, and the requests we decline.
A batch of one is built differently
No pilot run, so accuracy comes from measurement at each station: cylinder run-in, joint preload, machining to a measured datum, calibration, loaded test.
What custom costs, stated early
Engineering, lead time, first-article risk, spares and repeat supply — eight cost lines a catalogue machine has already absorbed, and how each is bounded.
Page 2 · The software
Controller & API integration: whoever wrote the controller decides what can change later
This page is for whoever writes the code that drives the platform. It explains where your software can attach, what the controller does between your command and a moving actuator, and how behaviour on a fault or a lost link is agreed before anything is built.
The reason it matters is ownership. Many platform suppliers buy a finished controller and configure it, which means every unusual request — a different command layer, a coordinate frame moved onto your workpiece, a fault reported another way — becomes a request to somebody else’s product roadmap. The masters, kinematics, washout, calibration tools and host software on this page were written in this company, so a request gets a schedule and a price, or a plain no with a reason.
The page is practical rather than promotional. It lists the four attachment points and what each one means for who solves the kinematics, names every module in the control stack, and shows the written coordinate convention your team codes against — including which way is positive on every axis.
Anyone can integrate a controller. The useful question is who can change one.
Writing the host code, or re-controlling a platform you already own? Open Controller & API Integration →
Commanded pose, achieved leg lengths and drive status on one screen, logged to file on the machine that ships.
What that page covers Six sections, one fact from each
Four places to attach
A pose over TCP or UDP, the SDK inside your code, cyclic fieldbus data, or a serial frame. Send a pose and the controller owns the kinematics; send leg lengths and you do.
Nine modules in the stack
Kinematics, coordinate transform, closed-loop control, S-curve planning, interpolation, look-ahead, washout, road excitation and safety limiting — each named, none a black box.
SDK with working demos
C++, C#, MATLAB and LabVIEW, with demo projects rather than a header file — including sending Euler angles, leg lengths, and a UDP link from a flight simulator.
Five ways to be an EtherCAT master
From a TwinCAT master to an in-house dual-core board interpolating every 500 µs — all sharing one host protocol, so your code does not change with the hardware.
Which way is positive
Zero, mid position, reference frames and the sign of every axis written down before code is written. Your own convention takes precedence where you have one.
When your software goes quiet
About five seconds without a host command and the platform moves to its calibrated rest pose instead of holding a stale one. Offsets and timeout are configurable and stated.
Before either page
Custom or standard: four routes, and the cheapest one that meets the requirement wins
“Custom” covers everything from a different table plate to a machine drawn from nothing. The price difference between those is not margin. It is how much already-proven engineering a change forces us to redo.
The 4-Route Custom Ladder What changes, what has to be proven again, and which page covers it
| Route | What changes | What has to be proven again | Covered on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Configured | Table plate, mounting pattern, command layer, guarding, documents | Nothing structural — the standard acceptance runs with your ballast | Standard platforms; interface on Controller & API |
| Modified | Stroke, table size, payload band, closed height | Structural and modal analysis, actuator sizing, the acceptance procedure | Custom & OEM Motion Platforms |
| Project-specific | Axis set, joint layout, the architecture itself | Kinematics, dynamics, structure, acceptance and the interface document | Both pages |
| OEM repeat | Nothing on the machine — how it is bought changes | A first-article inspection and a frozen configuration record | Repeat supply section |
Route 02 is where most projects land, including many that arrive believing they need route 03. Route 01 is worth checking first: where a published machine carries your load, a configured order is a shorter lead time and a smaller invoice, and we will say so. Everything sold through this column is servo electric; where the real requirement is hydraulic force density in a small envelope, we are not the supplier.
Cannot tell whether you need route 02 or route 03? Send the requirement and the first reply names the route with its reason →
How the two pages meet in a real project
The machine is sized first, the interface is frozen second, and both are accepted together
The two pages describe halves of one project. Reading them in the wrong order is how an interface gets written for a mechanism that later changes.
STEP 01 · PAGE 1
State the load
Mass, centre-of-gravity height, inertia and the motion. The machine cannot be sized without all of them.
STEP 02 · PAGE 1
Freeze the machine
Stroke, table, structure and payload interface signed. Changing geometry after this point costs weeks.
STEP 03 · PAGE 2
Choose the attachment
With the mechanism settled, pick how deep your software reaches — and therefore who owns the kinematics.
STEP 04 · PAGE 2
Sign the interface
Commands, units, signs, rate, offsets, timeout and fault list. Bench-run against a controller on a desk.
STEP 05 · BOTH
Accept at load
Machine and software run the agreed profiles with your ballast, logged, witnessed if you choose.
Have a delivery date and need these five steps against it? Send the date and we will mark which step is on your critical path →
What an engineering review needs
What to send, split by which page it belongs to
Nobody has everything at the start. Send what exists; anything missing comes back as a short list of questions, not a delay.
For the machine
- Mass of everything above the actuators, table and fixture included
- Centre-of-gravity height above the table
- Inertia about each axis, or the drawing it can be taken from
- The motion: travel per axis, or a signal or spectrum to reproduce
- Duty over a normal working hour
- Ceiling height, floor construction and supply at the site
- Units now, and units expected later
For the controller
- What your host outputs, in which units and frame
- Update rate and the link it runs over
- Development environment: C++, C#, MATLAB, LabVIEW or a fieldbus master
- Coordinate convention, if your organisation already has one
- What should happen on a fault or a lost link
- For an existing platform: builder, age, drives and current software
What comes back
- The route — configured, modified, project-specific or OEM repeat — with its reason
- An indicative envelope at your load
- The attachment point for your software
- Which inputs are still missing, and what each would change
- Engineering and machine quoted as separate lines
A general-arrangement drawing of your payload answers three of the machine lines at once, and one second of real host output answers most of the controller lines. Two attachments usually beat a page of description.
Have half of this and wondering whether it is enough? Send the half. The first reply lists what else is needed →
Outside this column
Other pages people open alongside these two
Range
Standard platforms
Published envelopes for six-axis, three-axis and Stewart machines. Check here first; a configured machine arrives sooner.
Application
What the platform is for
Testing, research, simulators and compensation. The application decides what the acceptance test has to prove.
Integration
Floor, supply and safety chain
The interfaces a building adds: dynamic floor load, anchors, supply, and where our stop circuit ends and yours begins.
Company
Who builds it
The plant in Nanjing, what is made there and what is bought in, and the records a project produces.
Asked before an engineering review
Custom & OEM motion platform FAQ
Do I need a custom platform, or will a standard one do?
Check your load and motion against a published envelope first. If they fit and only the table plate, interface or documents differ, that is a configured order with a shorter lead time and no engineering line. It becomes custom when the structure has to change — a longer stroke, a larger table, a heavier or taller payload. The first reply to an enquiry names which route applies and quotes the shallower one alongside wherever it exists.
Will you build a single machine?
Yes. The minimum order is one, and a single machine is a normal order rather than an exception. Engineering is quoted as its own line, so you can see what the design work costs separately from the machine. If more units are likely later, say so at the start: a first unit built under configuration control costs slightly more and makes every later one cheaper and identical.
Can your controller drive a platform we already own?
Sometimes, and it starts as an engineering review rather than a price. The platform's identity and condition, the drives and feedback fitted, the electrical and safety arrangement, the software it runs today and what has to change afterwards decide it. The electrical and safety arrangement usually decides the price. Where a retrofit would cost more than the machine is worth, the review says so.
Why do you publish no prices?
Because on a custom machine the price follows the load case, and a published figure would describe a machine you are not buying. What we do publish is what drives the price — the route, what each route forces us to prove again, and the cost lines a custom machine carries that a catalogue one does not — so a quotation can be read line by line when it arrives.
Why is your quotation higher than a supplier offering the same axis count?
Compare the scope before the number. Is their payload figure the whole moving load or only your article, and at what centre-of-gravity height? Is the acceleration single-axis or combined? Is the machine tested loaded before shipment or commissioned empty on your site? And who wrote their controller — because that decides whether a change request three years from now has a price or an apology. Those four explain most of the gap.
Are you the manufacturer or a trading company?
The manufacturer. Servo cylinders are machined, platforms assembled and loaded acceptance tests run in our own plant in Nanjing, and the controller and motion software are written by our own engineers. Motors, drives, encoders and bearings are bought in standard commercial sizes on purpose, so your maintenance team can source replacements without us. You are welcome to witness the factory test, in person or through an inspection body you appoint.
Payment terms, warranty, shipping and installation are answered in the full FAQ.
Start an engineering review. The first reply names the route and the page.
A load, a motion and a sentence about your software are enough to start. If a standard machine will do, that is what comes back.
What comes back first
- Whether this is a configured, modified, project-specific or OEM repeat project
- An indicative envelope at your load
- The attachment point for your software, and who that makes the owner of the kinematics
- The inputs still missing, and what each one would change