Stepper motor advice for absolute novice

[mbgnjdb5]

I don't know how cost comes into your project, but there are cheaper places than RS for steppers (e.g. ArcEuroTrade). Similarly, you probably don't need an absolute encoder, just an incremental one (after all, once it has gone round 360 degrees, it's indistinguishable from its starting position). The encoder you link to has sine-cosine output; this is quite difficult to interface. Simple quadrature output is probably adequate.

The university has an account with RS and they're a 'preferred supplier'. Cost is not too important, as long as it's reasonable.

The reason I need an absolute encoder is that it's imperative that I know the angular position of the component that I'm rotating and because the tests may be split over quite a few days it makes it far simpler to acquire and correlate the data. The errors in angular position of the stepper motor shaft are large enough for me to justify the cost and complexity of the encoders.

One of the technicians I do have access to has worked with sine-cosine outputs before so I'm hopeful that he'll be able to take care of the angular data acquisition.

Hopefully my reasoning is more clear now.

Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll look into it.