Controlling rotation stage with NI card/controller

[ADughally]

I am trying to control a rotation motor (Velmex). I have a NI PCI-7414 card and NI MID-7604 stepper motor drive already installed. My problem is in how to actually send commands to control the motor via LabVIEW software (ValueMotion). I am not extremely software inclined but I know the basics of LabVIEW. Has anyone done this before and can help. Thanks -)

[JesseD]

Hello,

Thank you for contacting National Instruments.

One good starting place for motion control is to use the Measurement and Automation Explorer (MAX) program to setup and test your motion controller. If you are using the PCI-7314 with ValueMotion 5.0.2 (latest version), then you should be able to use MAX. If not, I highly recommend upgrading to 5.0.2. Also note that ValueMotion is an obsolete product, so updates are no longer being made.

For assistance with MAX, please see the following tutorials (note that the tutorials are based on the newer software, and will look a little different for ValueMotion):

Axis Configuration
Axis Settings
Trajectory Settings

To use the motion controller in LabVIEW, I recommend first taking a look at the example programs. ValueMotion will install example VIs for simple move operations in the LabVIEW\examples\motion\ValueMotion folder.

Another good starting place is the following tutorial (the example VIs in the tutorial are based on the newer motion software, but the same basic procedure applies with the ValueMotion VIs):

Fundamentals of Motion Control

Hope this information helps out. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Best Regards,

Jesse D.
Applications Engineering
National Instruments