USB6008 stepper motor control

[senna]

Currently , I am trying to build a VI that can control a stepper motor. I would really appreciate if someone could give me some guidance on how exactly I should start .

The situation is like this : I have a 4 coil, unipolar stepper motor, and the driver im using will be a ULN-2003. The interfacing between the motor and labview would be via the NI-USB6008 DAQ. I understand that this particular DAQ is rather basic, but my current plan is to use the software timed output for this device.

What I need to do is simply connect 4 of the digital output ports on the DAQ to the driver chip, and from there, what I need is simply to turn the ports on and off in the proper sequence to generate the stepping sequence.

I have tried searching all over the net for resources but cant really find any guide which is really detailed. Sorry for the trouble, but I am really new to Labview, therefore it is quite difficult for me to understand certain functions within it.

I would really appreciate if someone could give me some guidance on how exactly I can write a VI that will enable me to turn the respective digital outputs on the motor in the proper sequence. What I have tried so far is to use the DAQMX supplied example, write to digital channel.vi, and when I select a certain output, the motor moves in a certain manner.

The thing i need to know now is, how I can build such a VI myself. Thanks in advance for all the kind responses and guidance .

[Francois Normandin]

I would suggest you take a look at the L298HN chip. It's cheap and it's a dual H-Bridge configuration. You can control a stepper motor (4,6 or 8 wires) with 2 DO (A and B) or 4 DO (A, /A, B, /B) for full-step and half-step modes. There are examples on the web on how to do this. (I don't have time to give you a link, but just google it. )