Stepper motor control( very basic)

[windows]

Hello!

I want to build a Labview Software/application which will directly control the stepper motor for a cnc one axis(at present).

first of all regarding the software my requirements are as follows:

1) I have to read a cad or any vector image.

2) accordingly i want to either

            a) generate the g code and control it through drive ( which is conventional)

            b) or directly control it via the usb (data lines of it).( i am not sure of this, please help here)

I have gone through the tutorial provided by the labview regarding the motion control of motor, though is there any way to do my way???

MY AIM IS DIRECTLY TO CONTROL THE MOTOR AND THERE WILL BE ONLY TWO COMPONENTS- MY LAPTOP AND THE STEPPER MOTOR CONNECTED TO MY LAPPIE.

pLEASE help me,

I am planning to make it my college project.

[nathand]

You will need a stepper motor driver; it can be a separate piece of hardware, or integrated into the motor.  You cannot connect the stepper on its own directly to a USB port.  Do you know what model motor you plan to use?  Does it include a built-in driver?

[windows]

i am using m49sp-1 stepper motor of a hp laserjet printer.

i found the driver ic of this motor in the ciruit of the printer( now need to extract the whole circuit)

if i buy a separate driver, then can i control it via labview?

[nathand]

---

@windows wrote:

i am using m49sp-1 stepper motor of a hp laserjet printer.

i found the driver ic of this motor in the ciruit of the printer( now need to extract the whole circuit)

if i buy a separate driver, then can i control it via labview?

---

Yes, probably.  You'll need a driver that includes some sort of serial or USB interface, sometimes described as a controller, such as http://www.linengineering.com/LinE/contents/stepmotors/R256.aspx (you'll need to find one that matches the electrical requirements of your motor).  You will also see lower-cost drivers available that are basically amplifiers and they do not connect directly to a PC - to use one of them, you need a way to generate the digital pulses that the stepper expects, and that's more work and more hardware.

[windows]

now how do i read the cad file and use it to control the drive?

[windows]

please, help!

How do I read a cad file in labview???

[nathand]

You'll need to be much more specific.  What program generates the CAD file?  Do you have any documentation on the file format?

[windows]

I mean to say CAD as vector image file.

for cnc operations we can develope the design in autocad/coreldraw and other vector drawing software.

by just reading this file and writing the appropriate programm( also with the hardware) we can control the stepper motors(2 axis)

So my first aim is to read this vector image file and then do programming to get the stepper run over the lines of the image.

[nathand]

You did not answer the question: what file format?  What is the extension ( .??? ) of the file type?  Do you have any documentation about that format?  I do not know of a built-in LabVIEW function for reading any vector image format, but if you search this forum, it is possible that you'll find code that someone has already written to do this.  Otherwise you will need to learn about the file format and write code yourself to read and interpret the data.

[windows]

file formats which i use are .dxf ( created by coreldraw), .plt ( never used).

but also want to read the autocad file format ( i.e. .cad)