Getting motion from a stepper motor?

[Davek0974]

I have been tasked with a small project for the day-job, we need a feed/rewind system for a foil printing machine.

Its a simple task - the device needs to take a start signal from the machine, accelerate a motor, run for a preset time, decelerate and stop.

Now, we can either go with a timed duration and adjustable speed or a fixed duration taken from the machine as a start & stop signal with adjustable speed.

The speed needs to be adjustable as the machine is variable speed and also the amount of foil to feed will vary depending on the job design.

So, my question is - how simple can we make this?

I would go straight for a Nema23, 4NM motor i think with a step/dir drive and simple PSU - these I have proven to be tough little cookies on my other machines.

But the control side - how would i look to achieve the speed ramping and velocity in the simplest way?

User input would just need to be a simple pot for the overall speed - this would set the amount of foil fed in the window provided by the start/stop signals.