Writing LabVIEW code to control the ISM-7411E stepper motor

[Ray.R]

Recently purchased an NI ISM-7411.  I read all the marketing litterature that claims that implementing a solution for this drive is cost efficient and simple.  I am beginning to suspect that no one from the marketing department ever had a discussion with an Engineer that actually connected the stepper motor to a power supply and the Ethernet cable to a LAN.

Yes, I read the foloowing http://www.ni.com/white-paper/12127/en/#toc8 among many other posts available on the NI website.  Maybe I missed something, somewhere...

Back to my reality. 

Okay.  There is a shiny new stepper motor connected to a power supply and to the local network.  The (cough) Stepper Motor Configuration application (which needs some improvement) was able to communicate with the motor and was able to rotate the drive shaft 1/2 revolutions at 0.25 rev/sec in both directions (self test).

That's very nice, but rather useless in implementing a full solution using LabVIEW.  SInce purchasing this stepper motor, I discovered that there are NO (standalone?) drivers for this product.  Rather misleading that it is supposidly easy to implement..

So, to cut to the chase:  Has anyone implemented any solution for this device?  Is there a list of Ethernet-based commands hidden somewhere?  How is software written for this product? 

I read all sorts of indications that a compactRIO is needed, or Motion toolkit is needed, etc.  None of this was mentionned when purchasing te product, so it this true?  It is not possible to directly write a program using VISA / Ethernet to send commands to the Stepper Motor?

Would anyone share their experience with this or similar products?

Thanks,

RayR

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Bummer Ray:

Do you have to cough up another $2K for the Softmotion Module?

Note that I do not have any firsthand experience with any NI Motion Controls.

-AK2DM

[Karl-G · Accepted solution]

Ray,

The LabVIEW SoftMotion Module is used to send Ethernet commands to the ISM-7411E, but you do not need the licensed version of the module. SoftMotion Lite (see the Selection Guide) offers full compatiblity with the Ethernet ISM, so there is no reason to use the full module.

You can control the motor from any supported LabVIEW target (PC, cRIO, etc.) using either SoftMotion Express VIs or Property and Invoke Nodes. The Getting Started Guide for the motor references the shipping example using Property and Invoke Nodes, and SoftMotion's help files give a description of the supported properties and methods as well as an overview of how to access them.

Karl

[Ray.R]

Thanks Karl,

What you provided is good information that I did not find earlier.  I found the installation for the SoftMotion Module.  I was hoping to create my own set of drivers with features that may be byond what is included inthe SoftMotion package, such as monitoring the current draw while the motor is in motion.  I will explore what the SoftMotion package includes. 

Basically, I was thinking in the lines of the host commands (Q and SCL commands) similar to what Applied Motion Products offers.  In other words, an API to allow us to develop our own set of drivers using the raw command structure over Ethernet.

Cheers!

RayR