Labview and servo drive control.

[dexterpoet]

Hello,

I was advised to post this question here, as I would be able to get more help.

I've got a project where I need to control a servo drive (which controls a servo motor) with Labview. The drive is an Emerson Digitax ST indexer drive that has an RJ45 port on it. I can normally connect from this port to my laptop via a USB to serial converter and use the Emerson software for monitoring and motion control, but I would like a more robust system of control using Labview.

Could anyone also explain the difference between comm ports, i.e. is the RJ45 jack an RS485 comm port, or for TCP connection only? (usually in the device manager of my PC when I make the connection from my laptop to the drive as above, it shows USB to serial converter plugged in).

Can anyone please suggest some idea, as I am very new to Labview. Thanks in advance.

[dexterpoet]

Hello,

I was advised to post this question here, as I would be able to get more help.

I've got a project where I need to control a servo drive (which controls a servo motor) with Labview. The drive is an Emerson Digitax ST indexer drive that has an RJ45 port on it. I can normally connect from this port to my laptop via a USB to serial converter and use the Emerson software for monitoring and motion control, but I would like a more robust system of control using Labview.

Could anyone also explain the difference between comm ports, i.e. is the RJ45 jack an RS485 comm port, or for TCP connection only? (usually in the device manager of my PC when I make the connection from my laptop to the drive as above, it shows USB to serial converter plugged in).

Can anyone please suggest some idea, as I am very new to Labview. Thanks in advance.

[LewisL]

Hi,

I checked this documents on Emerson Digitax ST and found that it supports many communication protocols. Ethernet IP, Modbus TCP/IP, Profibus, DeviceNet, CAN and EtherCAT.

NI has OPC as well as all the above mentioned communication protocol toolkits. (search them at ni.com) You can use them to communicate with the servo.

RJ45 is not an RS485. RJ45 is not TCP connection only. It is simply (part of) physical layer.

RJ45 and RS485 are different kinds of physical layer (definition of signals, rate, etc.). In some cases a protocol may be adapted to different physical layers and named accordingly.