how to control Stepper motor using the parallel port using labview

[BuggyXXX]

HI,

Im a poly student who is doing a project on XYZ axis control using three stepper motors and the software im using is Labview 8.0.

i would like to get some information about the interface card needed to use and some informationn about the using the parallel port.

im not allowed to use the NI motion card.i need some advice about these matter.

please be kind enough to look in to my matter

Thanks

Pasan

[VGA_CD-ROM]

Hi BuggyXXX,
If you are not able to use an NI motion controller card in your system, what kind of interface card were you looking to use? Your best bet would probably be to find a stepper drive which you can control via a serial COM port, also known as RS-232. That way you can send simple serial commands to control the stepper and let the drive take care of actually driving the motors into the proper position. If you wanted to use the parallel port to explicitly send Step & Direction signals, this may be possible, but many parallel ports these days are 0-3.3V rather than the 0-5V that most drives would expect.

Instead of the parallel port, you might also consider one of our digital I/O cards to manually signal step & direction, or possibly an industrial digital I/O card if your drive expects higher 12-24V signals (though you will need an external power supply for that).

[Daniel.Cazacu]

Hi,

I am also interested in this topic.

I`m trying to control an old stepper with this circuit from LV with this vi .

I`ve connected the circuit to pin 8 and 9 from the DB-25 and the motor senses the speed control from the vi but it doesen't turn.

Maybe you can help me with this old aplication.

Thanks (please excuse my bad English).

[VGA_CD-ROM]

Hi Daniel,
What do you mean that the motor sense the speed control but doesn't turn? If you connect an oscilloscope or bank of LEDs to the outputs of the parallel port or to the DB25's outputs and then to the coil outputs, are you seeing the pulses represented as you expect? Also, I don't know if I misread what connections you are making, but it it looks like the circuit diagram wants you to connect pins 2 & 3 from the DB25 to pins 3 & 4 of the circuit, but did you say you connected pins 8 & 9 from the DB25 instead?

[mie]

Hi,
I'm very interested with this topics.
Can I control Stepper motor using the field point?? I already have cFP-DO-401.
So,I must have the driver for this motor or not to communicate with field point???

Thanks,

Regards,
mie

[Jochen]

mie,

the timing of a cFP system is typically too slow for controlling a stepper motor. If you want to control a stepper from a cFP system with an embedded controller (cFP-2xxx), you could use the serial port of the controller to communicate with an intelligent stepper drive with RS232 interface. There are a lot of products like that available in the market and they are typically ok for simple motion control applications.

Kind regards,

Jochen Klier
National Instruments

[Jochen]

mie,

I just want to add, that you definitely need an external drive. Even if the timing of the cFP-DO-401 was fast enough for your application, you couldn't connect a stepper motor directly to it, as it's not possible to drive current in positive and negative direction. Bidirectional current flow is one of the major requirements of stepper motors. Additionally you couldn't generate varying current patterns, which would be required for microstepping which is essential for smooth operation.

Jochen

[mie]

Hi Jochen,
Thanks with your information. I try to do it.
Thanks a lot.

Best regards,
mie

[umargill]

With respect & Regards, 

Hello Everyone.

I am here to ask the same.

I am designing a stepper motor based three axis Translation Mechanism. I am using three NEMA-17 Bipolar, 4-lead stepper motors. I am looking for drive & controlsystem so that motion along each axis may be controlled easily. My manager has asked me to use LabVIEW software for PC integration. I am also allowed to use any supporting card or component for this purpose. Stepper mottor is rated at 2.5 amp current & a voltage input of 3.2 V. You may check it by googling [Wantai 42BTGHW811 stepper motor]. Can anyone please help me in this regard? I am left with very little time to accomplish it.
Many thanks for reading.

Regards:

Gill