How do I co-ordinate a two axis stepper motor/encoder system to move sinusoidally?

[ojd128]

I am trying to add a second (lateral) motion axis to a tow tank assembly. The goal is to have the combination of lateral and longitudinal motion trace out a sinusoidal path. Any help would be appreciated.

[Yusuf C]

Hello,

There is a shipping Flexmotion example that follows a spiral pattern instead of a sinusiod (Two-Axis Contouring (Spiral).vi). That example uses a vi called Spiral Generator.vi to generate the 2D spiral array. All you need to do is to replace that with a subvi that generates a sine pattern instead.
Hope this helps!

Regards,

Yusuf C.
Applications Engineering
National Instruments

[Jochen]

If you are using a 7344 board then it would also be possible to do circular moves instead of using contouring. In your case you would need two 2D vector spaces running circular moves. You would only connect the first axis of each vector space to your drive while the other one is running as open loop stepper so it doesn't need any feedback signals. In this configuration the first axis of each vector space is doing a sinusoidal move.

Regards,

Jochen Klier
Applications Engineering Group Leader
National Instruments Germany GmbH

[ojd128]

THank you, Jochen. I am running a 7344 board, I will try this. Much appreciated.

[ojd128]

Hi Yusuf, I couldn't make this work. Thank you for the suggestion though.