How to use labview to drive a New Focus Picomotor sinusoidally

[BRox]

Hello,

I am currently trying to use Labview to control a NewFocus Picomotor (Model# 8302)using the inteligent driver model 8753:

http://www.newfocus.com/products/?navid=3&theView=modelDetail&productLineId=6&productGroupId=195&mod...

http://www.newfocus.com/index.cfm?navId=97   (Using MCL with Labview)

Ideally I would like to modify a preexisting driver to drive the motor sinusoidally in the 30-70 Hz range with control over the amplitude.  At this point, I am completely daunted by the complexity of the example files and have no clue where to start.  Any assistance with this matter is GREATLY appreciated.

Best Regards, 

BRox

[Jochen]

BRox,

I had a look at the examples and obviously all it does is to communicate to the drive through RS232 with a proprietary protocol. With the documentation in the block diagram and the documentation of the protocol it shouldn't be too hard to understand what's going on, but on the other side NewFocus has obviously missed a chance to provide a high level and easy to use API for their product...

I can't dive too deeply into the features of this drive, but before you spend too much time on understanding their command language, you should check with NewFocus, if it is possible at all to meet your requirements with their hardware. The main reason why I doubt that is the slow communication speed provided by RS232. The only way to reach a sinusoidal motion profile of 30 to 70 Hz with this type of communication is running the complete trajectory generation and interpolation onboard. If you have planned to generate the motion profile in LabVIEW and send setpoint commands to the drive this will probably not work.

If the drive provides another command input (e. g. an analog +/- 10 V input for torque or velocity command signals), we can talk about alternative approaches.

Regards,

Jochen Klier

National Instruments

[sandip]

Hi, I am working with same motor and driver model. I wanted to control 4 New Focus Pocimotors independently. I found the driver has three chanels (motors). I was planning to control two motors by every port (channel) of the driver.

But I am new to this and don't know much!

Any help is appreciated!!!

Regards,

Sandip

[Hueter]

Sandip

As Jochen pointed out the LabVIEW driver for this device is just a wrapper around the Ldnlib.dll made by New Focus.  If you have questions about the LabVIEW implementation of the wrapper around the dll, this forum is a good place to ask. However if you have questions about how the driver interacts with the motors you should contact New Focus.

Hunter Smith

Applications Engineering

[feife]

Have you finished you work ?  I encounter the same problem.