Labview and teknic clearpath SC

[Roamex]

Hello, I am new to labVIEW and for my first program I would like to try and control a servo motor made by a company called teknic (clearpath SC). Currently we have been running our motors with PWM and have to define torque conditions with a separate program on setup. I want to have the ability to have labview change parameters and monitor motors outputs and was wondering if someone can help me with this.

The motor I purchased has a SDK kit that comes with it. It is written in C++. I was originally thinking that I could import the .DLL file to access all off the software functions. whenever I try and import I am unsure of the header file to use and also get a ton of errors. Would anyone be able to point me in the write direction if this sounds feasible. Thanks. I have attached the SDK I would like to access in labview.

[Bob_Schor]

LabVIEW has a set of VIs that are designed for Motion Control.  You have chosen to purchase a package that has custom hardware and software, with the Software designed as C++ Projects using a custom SDK that "hooks into" the specialized firmware inside the Teknic motor.

My advice is to use the Software designed by Clearpath to run these motor for that purpose.  This is definitely not a "first LabVIEW Program" -- if you had any experience with LabVIEW (like working through the various Tutorials), you'd probably realize this ...

Bob Schor

[Roamex]

Thanks for the advice Bob. I understand this is not a great project for a first timer but its done out of necessity. The teknic motor has already been programmed with a custom library that can be programmed in Visual studio with example files. I was just wondering if its possible to do this with labVIEW and to get a feel of how much time this would take an average to experienced user to do. Then I can decide If its worth doing or spending a few thousand dollars to replace our existing motors.

[rolfk · Accepted solution]

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@Roamex wrote:

Thanks for the advice Bob. I understand this is not a great project for a first timer but its done out of necessity. The teknic motor has already been programmed with a custom library that can be programmed in Visual studio with example files. I was just wondering if its possible to do this with labVIEW and to get a feel of how much time this would take an average to experienced user to do. Then I can decide If its worth doing or spending a few thousand dollars to replace our existing motors.

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Well, I took a quick look at the SDK header files and it would seem that the driver API is really C++. That means you would need to write a wrapper DLL in C/C++ that exports standard C API functions to call from the LabVIEW Call Library Node.

A rough estimate for this to do would be anywhere from one week up to several weeks depending how much of the API you need to make accessible from within LabVIEW and the experience with C and LabVIEW programming of the person who would do this. So definitely not a quick job that could be done in a day or so.

As a starting project with LabVIEW it is definitely not suited unless you have a very strong experience with C programming and "only" need to learn LabVIEW.