Labview-> DAQ-> Many Steppers?

[kevinmh]

Originally Posted by stinglikeabee

Have you looked at using Arduino? There is native LabVIEW support for this inexpensive platform. There are plenty of stepper drivers available if you search places like SparkFun. These may or may not work for you.

What size stepper are you looking to control? Will you need to execute in real time?

SLAB:

I'm definitely getting nudged the Arduino direction. It's just that we have a dedicated PC for this project, so I thought I'd be able to use just that. I'll check out your link though, thanks.

I would like to run the 4A stepper I already have and then 8 more 1-2A steppers. But I could go smaller on the one and just gear it down.

The motors need to run in a very coordinated fashion but not necessarily in real time I don't think. Basically I'm building something like a filament winder with multiple pay out eyes if you're familiar with that sort of thing. So, I'm essentially spinning a mandrel and winding multiple tows of fiber around it at constantly changing fiber angles.