National Instruments PXI-7334 Stepper Motion Controller Module

The National Instruments PXI-7334 (Part Numbers: 779035-04, 778444-01) is a specialized controller tailored for precise point-to-point motion applications, particularly suited for industrial automation tasks. Equipped with advanced motion control capabilities, it facilitates seamless coordination of multiple axes for linear interpolation, ensuring smooth motion even at high velocities..

The PXI-7334 provides fully programmable motion control for up to four independent or coordinated axes and was created specifically for stepper motor control within PCI and PXI bus systems. Accurate point-to-point and straight-line vector movements are made possible by its high-performance stepper generating capabilities, which make it perfect for a variety of automation applications.

The architecture of the controller features two processors: a customized field programmable gate array (FPGA) and an Analog Devices ADSP-2185 digital signal processor (DSP), together with a Motorola MC68331 real-time 32-bit CPU. This architecture offloads sophisticated motion operations from the host PC, improving system performance and command throughput.

Dedicated motion I/O for home switch and end-of-travel limit inputs, trigger input, breakpoint output, and encoder feedback speeds of up to 20 MHz are some of the important features. Furthermore, the controller provides non-dedicated user input/output, comprising four analog inputs, joystick inputs, and 32 bits of digital I/O appropriate for ±10 V signals or analog sensor monitoring.

Utilizing quadrature encoders or analog inputs for position and velocity feedback, the PXI-7334 offers both open and closed-loop operation modes for stepper axes. Step/direction or clockwise/counter-clockwise digital outputs are available for closed-loop operation.

In the event of a malfunction, the controller has shutdown inputs to turn off all axes and command outputs in addition to a watchdog timer function that resets the board to its initial state. Its strong motion I/O capabilities also include support for digital I/O ports with individual bit programmability for flexible control topologies and encoder inputs with a maximum count rate of 20 MHz.