Getting motion from a stepper motor?

[Davek0974]

Did i say i was not happy with the suggestions? No.

I admitted to a personal fault of not being able to start learning another programming language, i am not 19 after all and it does not get any easier. In the last few months i have started on cnc machining, 3d design, 3d CAM and a few other bits, studying a new language does not grasp my attention at all.

If that makes it sound like i am ungrateful then i apologise but we all have limitations and i have admitted this one, 10 or 20 years ago i would have jumped on it but they didn't exist then did they. Its got nothing at all to do with "being bothered" as you put it, clearly you have no limitations at all.

[magicniner]

clearly you have no limitations at all.

Not so, but I have, because I was bothered, put in the effort over the last 2 years or so to learn CAD/CAM/CNC from no level of experience at all.
Prior to that I have in my professional life learned Allen Bradley Ladder Logic in a weekend because a friend and colleague needed me to, admittedly I was already an experienced Z80 assembler programmer (All Hail Rodney Zacks!) but that had no direct bearing other than logical thinking.
Get a company in for this one, you are clearly not interested in the logical suggestions given, even though with an Arduino there is obviously something close to a solution available and having it professionally tweaked would probably cost you less than your 3 phase motor, gerabox and VFD (which would not furnish a complete solution),

- Nick

[JAZZCNC]

Nick your being a bit harsh here what's wrong with looking for simpler solutions, which is all daves talking about.?
Just because some half decent suggestions have been made doesn't mean there isn't better ones out there.

Dave look at Pokeys 57E. They can be run stand alone controller with it's own PLC ladder logic and have Stepper motors to match.

[Davek0974]

Looking at the process more today, I think we can simplify by orders of magnitude.

Steppers stop better than they start, especially with a load on them - I am fairly confident that we can get away with just a ramp up and run signal, no ramp down so its just ramp-up, run, stop. Don't forget - this is not CNC, an accuracy of a few mm's is fine here.

This means we can possibly look at a simple circuit based on a 555 ic with a few components to give the ramp and adjustable speed, i have seen something like that on the 'net, will try and find it again.

That, with a suitable drive and PSU will be it, nothing more needed apart from a run / stop trigger.