Hi leachdor,
NI doesn't provide VFDs, but regardless of which product you are selecting, there should be almost in all cases a way to interface the VFD to NI software. If the drive provides a +/- 10 V command input, you could use an NI-Motion board like the PCI-7344, which provides a very easy to use API. For this approach you will need a quadrature encoder feedback signal from your motor or an emulated quadrature feedback signal from the drive for the case, that the motor uses a different feedback device.
If the drive controls the motor's velocity by itself, for you application it could be even sufficient to use a simple multifunction DAQ device with an analog output to send an analog velocity setpoint to the drive. In this case you may want to measure the motor's velocity with the DAQ device to know, when the motor has reached the desired velocity.
Most VFDs provide fieldbus interfaces like CANOpen, Profibus or Ethercat. From a software point of view it's typically a bit harder to integrate these interfaces, as you need to learn about the command set of the VFD and the specific requirements of the specific fieldbus, but it's definitely possible to use these interfaces, too.
If you have already a specific drive in your mind, please post a link to the datasheet here and I will try to give you some advice about integrating this drive into an NI software environment.
Kind regards,
Jochen Klier
National Instruments
