Stepper motor is inevitably used in industrial control, how to control the stepper motor, how to set the speed, direction, and drive current of the stepper motor, which requires the stepper motor controller, So what is stepper motor control, what is the difference between stepper motor controller and stepper motor driver, what are the classification of stepper motor controller, what are the application cases of stepper motor controller, the article describes in detail
Stepper motor controller and stepper motor driver difference
The following picture shows the control architecture of the conventional stepper motor
The conventional stepper motor control system is a stepper motor, a stepper motor driver, and a stepper motor controller. As can be seen from the figure, the stepper motor controller is the part above the stepper motor driver, which can send a high-speed pulse signal to the stepper motor driver, and the stepper motor driver accepts the high-speed pulse signal sent by the stepper motor controller, and amplifies the signal. To drive the stepper motor, the stepper motor controller and the stepper motor driver are different in the following points
1, the stepper motor controller is a pulse generator, can produce high-speed pulse
2. The stepper motor controller is more diversified than the stepper motor driver, and the stepper motor driver generally has a single function, mainly the function of amplifying pulse signals
3, the stepper motor controller is generally programmable, and the stepper motor driver directly accepts the pulse signal
4, the stepper motor controller is a low-voltage control signal, and the stepper motor driver has a variety of high and low voltage
Stepper motor controller classification
There are many kinds of stepper motor controllers, in a word: products that can emit high-speed pulse signals and have programming functions can be called stepper motor controllers
Stepper motor controllers on the market in the form of product classification are:
PLC
PLC is currently the most widely used stepper motor controller, PLC function is very comprehensive, generally have multiple high-speed pulse output, that is, you can control multiple stepper motors at the same time, but also because PLC function is very comprehensive, stepper motor control is only a very small part of its control function, if only to control the stepper motor generally do not need to use PLC
Single chip microcomputer
There are many ways for single-chip microcomputer as a stepper motor controller, generally STM32, 51 single-chip microcomputer chip represented by high-speed pulse output port, but the development of single-chip microcomputer chip is more complicated, if only to control the stepper motor to develop the single-chip microcomputer chip, it is a little too much
Stepper motor controller integrated with drive and control
As shown in the figure above, the integrated stepper motor controller mainly focuses on the stepper motor control, including the driving function of the stepper motor, no need to connect the driver; Has a relatively rich IO interface, can access the stepper motor encoder, as well as motor limit switch, electromagnetic lock, etc. This controller is usually equipped with 232, 485, CANopen and other bus interfaces, with the corresponding debugging tool software can directly control the stepper motor on the computer; Or write the program on the computer, save it in the controller, and control the stepper motor through IO trigger, if it is to control the stepper motor, this type of controller is the most common use at present.
