complete beginner seeking help with DC motor control

[adriantaylor09]

Hey guys,

I'm a mechanical engineer by trade. When it comes to anything electronic, I'm ashamed to say, I am pretty useless.

I'm working on a small project which involves driving and controlling a mechanism via a 12V DC brushed motor.
To drive the motor I will be using an analog servo drive (for brushed type dc motors) made by Advanced Motion Controls (photo attached).

My application requires that the motor is run at a constant velocity, and that a user can vary that velocity through software (software must be written in C++).
I'm assuming that in order to achieve the control through software part, the motor driver will have to receive a signal from some kind of digital controller which in turn can be connected to my PC (via a network) where I can set and vary the motor speed.

My question to the Eng-tips group is two fold:
Firstly, I'm a little lost as to how to wire up the motor driver. As I said, I'm pretty useless with anything electronic. Could someone point me in the right direction, perhaps a reference or text book or some kind of tuturial which will help me with the practical side of connecting the electronics: from power-supply to driver to motor etc? (All I have currently is the data sheet which I find rather confusing).

Secondly, I don't really know where to start in terms of selecting a digital controller that would work well in my application. Again, any links to texts or tutorials would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Adrian

 

[itsmoked]

Mining or not you're sounding like a student who wants it handed to them..

You have the manual. Look at it. It should show you exactly how to wire everything up. If it doesn't shame on the maker. Get on the phone and request drawings from them that allows proper connection and use of their product.

You need to read and understand or ask them what signal is needed to control the servo's speed. Is it a current 4-20mA or is it a voltage 0-10Vdc or 0-5Vdc or what?

Also tell them you want to drive this all from a PC. Ask what they'd suggest. You're likely not the first customer of theirs to ever try this. They could well have everything you need or application documents that describe it all. They may even have code examples.

Pick up da phone and give it a shot.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[Skogsgurra]

Keith is right. If you do not have time, or are prepared to, du the studying on your own, the best information comes from the suppliers.

There is a vast number of varieties when it comes to motors and drives. Scan these pictures to familiarize yourself with the DC motor and the drives:

https://www.google.se/search?q=dc+m...Mi3hAeiloDoDA&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=939&bih=583

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

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