Affordable options for stepper control

[Simon-lee]

Hi Folks,

I’m after a little advice.

I need to drive a linear guide with a stepper motor via an Applied Motion STR2 drive board.

To date I have been using a cDAQ-9184 + NI-9375 which does work but it’s a little slow.

I suspect I’m at the 1ms software timing limit which translates to about 2.5 revolutions a sec (STR2 min is 200 cycles per revolution). I need to be running at 20 rp/sec so I need to generate finite number of signals at approximately 4 khz

What is my cheapest/easiest option to get additional speed?

Note: There is a NI-6008 in the cupboard if that’s any use.

Running Labview 2019 base

[A-Guz-Man · Accepted solution]

So you've been generating Software Timed Pulse Trains and you're getting to SW timed limit?

Ideally I'd suggest you use some of the Counter Output examples of DAQmx and generate Finite Pulse trains with that, I'm not certain the USB-6008 supports this though. Counters (HW timed) have the advantage of being very precise and allow higher frequencies.

If not, you can also take a look at this: Generating Hardware-Timed Signal Pulses on a PXIe-653x which basically does the same but using the Digital Outputs.