StepperControl.com -- Your Stepper Motor and Controller Source!

Frequently Asked Questions

This is a list of some of our most frequently asked questions. If you can't find what you're looking for in this section, please either email us, or fill out our contact form.

Questions (Click on Question to go to answer):

General Questions

-- Where is your company located, and how can I contact you?
-- What is the expected delivery time for your products?
-- What type of guarantee or return policy is there on your products?

Stepper Motor Controller Questions

-- What type of motors can your controllers be used with?
-- How are the motors connected to the controller boards?
-- What is the pin out information for the terminal blocks on the controller boards?
-- My country's power grid is not 120V, 60Hz, so your power supplies will not work. What type of power supply should I purchase?
-- How powerful are the stepper motors you sell?
-- What kind of weights can your stepper motors move?
-- How do I connect the motors to the controller board?
-- How can I attach multiple boards to the same computer?
-- How fast can the motors rotate with your controllers and software?

Software Questions

-- Can I design my own software to work with your controllers?
-- What operating systems does your software support?
-- How can I incorporate your controllers and software into LabVIEW?

Answers

General Answers

Q. What is the expected delivery time for your products?

A. Credit card orders ship out within 2 business days of the order. Check or money orders ship when the checks have been deposited. Purchase order shipments are made upon approval of the purchase order. We can accept purchase orders from companies or universities and other educational institutions.

Q. What type of guarantee or return policy is there on your products?

A. You can return any undamaged merchandise for a full refund up to 30 days after purchase. We also will replace or repair any defective merchandise for up to a full year after purchase, at no charge.

Stepper Motor Controller Answers

Q.What type of motors can your controllers be used with?

> A. The A-100 and A-200 stepper motor controllers are designed for use with unipolar, 2-phase stepper motors. There are restrictions on the current and voltage requirements of the motors, since the controllers can only deliver a limited amount of power. For more info on this see the A-100 and A-200 pages.

Q. How are the motors connected to the controller boards?

A. The controller boards have terminal blocks for attaching the motors. To tighten the screws in the terminal blocks down on the wires, you will need a small slotted screwdriver.

Q. What is the pin out information for the terminal blocks on the controller boards?

A. The pin out for the A-100 and A-200 motor connecters is as follows (from left to right, looking at the front of the terminal blocks as shown):

(Pin 1) + - Connect to ground first
(Pin 2) + - Positive Voltage
(Pin 3) + - Connect to ground third
(Pin 4) + - Connect to ground second
(Pin 5) + - Positive Voltage
(Pin 6) + - Connect to ground fourth

Q. My country's power grid is not 120V, 60Hz, so your power supplies will not work. What type of power supply should I purchase?

A. There are a few specs for you to consider when purchasing a DC power supply for use with your controller board. The important things to remember are that the connector on the power supply should be of the barrel type, with a .215" OD, and center positive.

The voltage and current of the supply depends on what motors you are going to drive. Basically the voltage should be equal to or slightly above the rating of the motor(s), and the current should be the same. With the current, you will need to make sure that if you use 2 motors your supply can produce twice the rated current of the motors (in case both motors are energized at once).

Q. How powerful are the stepper motors you sell?

A. The stepper motors that we carry varied from week to week, but some of our more powerful motors approach 200 oz.-in of holding torque. To know if this is enough power for your application, you will need to calculate the amount of torque needed due to the weight of the device or load, friction, and other losses.

Q. What kind of weights can your stepper motors move?

A. This can vary greatly from application to application. Our motors page has the torque info for each stepper motor we sell, but we cannot advise if the motors will be powerful enough for your application without a great deal of detail.

Q. How do I connect the motors to the controller board?

A. The controller boards have terminal blocks that you place the leads of the motors in. The leads are clamped into place by tightening the small screws on the terminal blocks with a slotted screwdriver.

For the motors to operate correctly you will need to know the exact position that the various leads should be in. All of this information is found on our setup page.

Q. How can I attach multiple boards to the same computer?

A. To control two stepper controllers you will need two parallel ports. If you need another parallel port there are I/O cards that you can buy and insert into your computer to add on additional parallel ports. They typically sell for between $10-$20 at most computer stores. We have versions of our software that we will provide to allow you to control the additional motors.

Q. How fast can the motors rotate with your controllers and software?

A. With our programs it is possible to get up to about 12,000 steps per minute (60 rpm for a 200 step/rev motor) with the A-100 and A-200 using the Windows software. Due to the lower overhead in DOS it is possible to get about twice this rate using DOS software.

Software Answers

Q. Can I design my own software to work with your controllers?

A. Yes. We have a .dll file that you can incorporate into your own software, allowing you to issue commands to the motors from within your own software. There is a complete section on our web site devoted to the .dll. There you can get more info about the .dll, see a list of the exports from the .dll, and download some examples of using the .dll in a C++ and VB program.

Q. What operating systems does your software support?

A. Currently we have software available for Win 95, 98, and NT. We are in the process of developing software for Windows 2000, and please check in our software section for availability, as it may be available before it is noted on this page.

Q. How can I incorporate your controllers and software into LabVIEW?

A. While we did not specifically design a solution for use with LabVIEW the DLL software that we provide seems to be the answer. A number of customers have asked about LabVIEW and we have heard back from a few letting us know they were able to get it to work with the DLL. For more information on LabVIEW click here.