National Instruments 7334, 7344 Introduction

©NationalInstruments Corporation 1-1 7344/7334Hardware User Manual

Introduction

Thischapter describes the FlexMotion 7344 and 7334 controllers and their

operation.

Thank you for purchasing a 7344/7334 controller. The 7344/7334

controllerfeatures advanced motion control with easy-to-use software tools

and add-on motion VI libraries for use with LabVIEW.

The 7344 controllers are a combination of servo and stepper motor

controllersfor PC I, PXI, and 1394 bus computers. The 7334 controllers

are exclusively stepper motor controllers for PCI bus computers. Both

controller families provide fully programmable motion control for up

to four independent or coordinated axes of motion, with dedicated motion

I/O for limit and home switches and additional I/O for general-purpose

functions. You can use the 7334 motion controller for point-to-point

and straight-line vector moves for stepper motor applications. The 7344

controllers add the ability to perform arbitrary and complex motion

trajectoriesusing stepper motors or servo devices. Refer to the FlexMotion

Software Reference Manual for a complete list of the feature differences

between the 7344 and 7334 controller lines.

Servoaxes can control servo motors, servo hydraulics, servo valves, and

otherservo devices. Servo axes always operate in closed-loop mode. These

axesuse quadrature encoders or analog input sf orpo sition and velocity

feedback and provideanalog command outputs with an industry-standard

range of ±10 V.Stepper axes control stepper motors. These axes can

operate in open or closed-loop mode. Theyu se quadrature encoders or

analog inputs for position and velocityfeedback (closed-loop only), and

providestep/direction or clockw ise(CW) /counter-clockwise (CCW)

digital command outputs. All stepper axes support full, half, and

microstepping applications.