stepper motor through parallel port

[matomato]

Hi everyone

I am trying to move a stepper motor using labview. I have a NI DAQ Card 6036E.

I have a stepper motor, a stepping motor driver and a microcontroller with a parallel port. The idea is to send a series of pulses to move the motor from the parallel port of the laptop to that of the microcontroller. I am not using DAQmx but just the traditional DAQ on a laptop with Windows XP.

The address of the laptop parallel port is 0378 037F.

I tried two examples found on the NI website/forum but without any result. I attach these VIs. 

Have you some suggestion to give me?

matomato

[raging_engie]

First, sorry for the accidental kudoues (this freakin wireless mouse has been on the fritzs).  Second, what information do you have on the motor driver?  This will allow us to make sure the signal your sending is or can be read by the motor.    Also, when you say "pulse" are your refering to pulse width modulation?

[matomato]

Hi raging_engie

thanks for the kudos  🙂

I am using a SD-2H086MB  stepping motor drive from the Sunrise Motor and a breakout board with a parallel port.

From the day of the post I have continued the development of the VI and I am arrived to the attached VI.

Using an oscilloscope I have seen that the output from the microcontroller is a squarewave. 

With the attached VI I can run the motor but I don't know why, I can't vary the speed and the direction of the rotation.

Hope the info are good enough to have some suggestion.

matomato 

[raging_engie]

Unfortunately,  I can not open your VI on this computer (as it runs the ancient labview 8.6) but hopefully I can give you some more helpful tips.  First, are you are using a counter port (you should be using a digital signal not analog one) on your DAQ to send the pulse signal to the step driver? Second make sure your pulse is to the specified configurations (section 9 of the motor drive manual).  From my understanding the frequency of the pulse controls the speed of the motor, with 0 Hz being no speed and 200 kHz being full speed.  You will need to continuously update this signal to control the speed on the fly.  Turning the motor on and off just involves switching the polarity of the ENA+/- lines (same as directions

Attached is a program I used for a similar purpose (but with a different daq).  You will may have to change the source settings to match your card, but the idea is the same.  Hope some of this helps.

[matomato]

Hi raging_engie

Thanks for the help and for the attached VI.

I have attached the previous VI saved in a old version so I hope you can open it now.

What I am trying to do it's controlling the motor using the parallel port and not a DAQ device.

This because we are using a laptop with labview 7.1 installed and this version does not support the DAQmx.

matomato