SMD-7615 Stepper motor drive - Ethernet

[DannyBaker]

I am using the SMD-7615 stepper motor controller via ethernet. There is a good example called "Axis Straight Line Move-Ethernet" in the soft motion examples. This example is in lavbview 2014 (and later). It has a resourse input that includes the ethernet port for communicating to the motor. I have tried the example with labview 2014 and it works. Here is the problem: The platform for this system is in labview 2011. We are adding the new motor controller to this labview 2011 plateform and would like to keep everything in labview 2011. So, I found the same example in 2011, "Axis Straight Line Move" ( no ethernet) in 2011. The resourse input for this example does not include the ethernet port  for communicaqting with the motor controller. NI said use labview 2014 instead of 2011. I do not want to do that. As I said I want everythin to be on the same labview 2011 platfvorm. There has to be a way to add the ethernet port to the resourse input in the 2011 example "Axis Straight Line Move".  Does anyone know how to do this?

[KathrynTheGreat]

Hi Danny,

How does the 2014 example reference the Ethernet port? Even if the connectivity isn't built into the 2011 example, it may still be possible to add it yourself, using a similar method to the 2014 example.

This is a situation where including VI snippets or at least screenshots of the relevant sections of code may be helpful, if you're looking for specific guidance.

[DannyBaker]

Thanks for the reply. I will get either the VI snippets or screenshots and post them in a little bit. Also, as I said in the post the examples ( both 2011 and 2014) show the resource input for the two different labview versions, 2011 and 2014.

[PaulRB]

The software support for the SMD-7615 did not exist prior to SoftMotion 2014. That means that even if you specify an ethernet resource (you can do this by wiring a string to the resouce input and typing the resource indentifier), there is no internal software support for it. You will probably get a resource not found error.

Thanks,

[DannyBaker]

For complete VI view "Axis Straight Line Move - Ethernet" in the 2014 softmotion example, and "Axis Straight Line Move"  in the 2011 softmotion example.

Here is  a VI snippet for the 2014 and 2011 resource input:

[DannyBaker]

2011 SMD resource again:

[DannyBaker]

I tried to post a vi snippet, not sure if I did it correctly? I have 2011 and was not able to open the 2011 snippet?

[DannyBaker]

The 2011 snipetts below had an resource indicator attached to the control, not sure where that came from, But here is one with just the 2011 resource control:

[PaulRB]

Are you trying to show that you can't type a resource name in 2011? What if you drop the axis resource from the palletes (Vision and Motion --> SoftMotion)? In any case, even if you can type in the proper resource name, it will not work. There is no software support in SoftMotion for ethernet steppers prior to 2014. The only way to control the ethernet steppers is via raw tcp commands. Unfortunately, I don't have the protocol handy.

Thanks,

[DannyBaker]

That is correct,I can't type the Ethernet IP address as a resource name for the 2011 "Axis Straight Line Move" example. I am not sure how to do it with TCP