USB-Stepper motor control ?

[winterishere8]

Hello All

I am trying to use a stepper motor with LabVIEW. In the past I've controlled the stepper motor using DAQ by connecting the wires directly. Now I have a stepper motor with USB interface and I wish to use 4 of my DIO for controlling. I've not used USB with labview before. Can someone post a simple example with USB-DAQ ?

Thanks

[JasonSmith]

I am a bit confused as to what you are trying to do.  Does your stepper motor have a USB interface, or are you trying to control a standard stepper motor through a USB-DAQ device, such as a USB-6008.  Assuming the latter, what type of interface do you have for your stepper motor?  Are the four wires connected directly to the coils of the stepper motor, or do they connect to a control circuit which accepts digital commands to control the stepper motor?

[winterishere8]

sorry for not being clear.

I have a stepper motor with USB interface and it does have a controller which takes in digital commands. I do not have the USB-600 yet.

I was trying to use LabVIEW's visa control to talk to the USB with little luck.

[JasonSmith]

You may have several options to communicate with your device.  The one which will be appropriate for your application will depend on what resources the manufacturer makes available to you.

1. Communicate with the device through a DLL provided by the manufacturer.  This would be accessed in LabVIEW through a "Call Library Function Node."

2. Communicate with the device through ActiveX controls provided by your manufacture.  This can be accessed through LabVIEWs ActiveX functions.

3. Create a .inf file to control the device through NI-VISA.  In order to do this, you must use the VISA Driver Development Wizard to create a driver which will associate your device with NI-VISA.  You must also know the syntax for all of the commands which must be sent to the device to control it.  See the document linked below for more details on this process.

Using VISA 3.0 to Control Your USB Device