Testing Motors

Complete the following steps to test motors.

1. Disconnect power to the motors and drives. If you have a National Instruments nuDrive or MID drive, do not turn on the Enable switch.
2. Verify all the wiring between the motion controller and motor and between the drive and the motor. If you have servo motors, you may need to verify the direction of the voltage. If you have stepper motors, you may need to verify the polarity of the step and direction lines. Refer to the motor drive documentation for polarity information.
3. Launch Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX).
4. Expand Devices and Interfaces in the configuration tree.
5. Expand NI–Motion Devices, and then select the item for the appropriate motion device.
6. Click Initialize.

   Note  This step assumes that you have correctly configured the initialization settings.

7. Expand Interactive in the configuration tree and select 1-D Interactive.
8. Select 1-D Interactive.
9. Click the Advanced tab.
10. Because the motor could run out of control if the motion control system is set up incorrectly, set the Following Error trip point to a low number to prevent damage to the motion control system.
    For example, if the length of your test system is 10,000 counts/steps and the start position is 5,000 counts/steps, you might set the following error trip point to 3,000 counts/steps to ensure that it occurs before the physical end of the system.
11. Power on the drive and motor.
12. Click Halt to energize the motor. The motion controller is sending information to the drive correctly if the motor maintains its position and resists movement by hand.
    • For servo motors, this step may cause the motor to buzz or oscillate. If this happens, use the servo tune panels to tune the motors.
    • For stepper motors, execute a move to identify correct behavior.
13. Repeat these steps for the remaining motors.