Linear Actuator

[Hansell]

Hi,

I've been looking for a while now, but I can't seem to find any rod type linear actuators with labview drivers made. I was wondering if anyone knows any distributors that provide actuators (with a stroke length of at least 30cm) with drivers made for labview.

Thanks

[PaulG.]

Actuators need a controller and an amplifier. LV communicates with the controller. I've used rotary actuators that had built-in controllers and amplifiers, but they were serial devices and a "driver" wasn't needed. I know a few of the bigger motion control companies (Aerotech, Parker) will sell you "Software Development Kits" :laugh: for LabVIEW if you are going the separate controller/amplifier route.

[ned]

QUOTE (Hansell @ Jul 22 2008, 01:09 PM)

I've been looking for a while now, but I can't seem to find any rod type linear actuators with labview drivers made. I was wondering if anyone knows any distributors that provide actuators (with a stroke length of at least 30cm) with drivers made for labview.

Try http://www.copleymotion.com/' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">Copley Motion? I've been controlling their stepper motor amplifiers through LabVIEW (they provide a free ActiveX component and LabVIEW examples). They work well in my application and were simple to set up. I haven't used their linear actuators but I'm willing to guess that they're equally easy to use.

[Maca]

What sort of force and frequency response are you after?

All the actuators I work with at work, are fed an analogue signal that controls the shuttle in the servo, A PID loop is then used to control the displacement or load.

Can you give a bit more information on the application?

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE (Hansell @ Jul 22 2008, 07:09 PM)

Hi,

I've been looking for a while now, but I can't seem to find any rod type linear actuators with labview drivers made. I was wondering if anyone knows any distributors that provide actuators (with a stroke length of at least 30cm) with drivers made for labview.

Thanks

http://www.maxonmotor.com/

Maxon has LabVIEW drivers for its drives RS232/CAN-bus

I used a maxon motor/drive with RS232 driver for a test bench - works great...

What is your application?

What do you need to do?

[vugie]

I used LinMot motor and controller. It had not LV drivers, but it was very easy to write such for RS232. Worked very good.