Danish motor specialist JVL (www.jvl.dk) is proud to launch an integrated stepper motor – which it says is the world’s shortest stepper motor with a built-in controller. The 3-Nm version of the motor is only 95 mm long, but incorporates all the stepper control electronics, such as a programmable motion controller and IP67-protected CANopen and RS-485 interfaces.

The stepper motors offer a resolution of 819,200 steps/rev for smooth and quiet operation. The motors integrate everything needed for stand-alone control or operation from a PC or PLC. A total of eight I/O points can be configured as digital inputs/outputs, or analogue inputs. Aside from the 95 mm-long version, there is also a 126 mm version that can deliver 6.1 Nm, as well as a 156 mm version that delivers 9 Nm.

The stepper motors are said to deliver an acceleration precision of 1rpm/s and a velocity precision of 0.01rpm. The motors operate from 12V DC to 80V DC supplies and can deliver high torque at high speeds.

An ActiveX/OCX driver is also supplied to simplify interfacing with Excel, VB, LabView or other PC-based programs. Use of MAC protocol from JVL allows SMC85 controllers and QuickStep and MAC motors to be integrated on the RS-485 bus, supporting multiaxis or point-to-point operation of up to 254 axes.

Options include planetary gears, RS-485 and RS-422 interfaces for encoder I/O and connection to external PLCs or HMIs, double-shaft and single- or multi-turn encoders, and a pulse/direction mode for electronic gearing. The stepper motor can be available with wireless WLAN, Bluetooth or ZigBee functions, and is ready for next-generation options such as industrial Ethernet, Profibus and multi-turn encoders without external batteries.