Performance Motion Devices Inc: Advanced stall detection for step motors

Device is designed specifically for step motor control, alerting the user when the motor has lost steps during motion which typically occurs when the motor's motion has been obstructed, or a system failure has occurred. The chip actively monitors the targeted and actual position, and detects any number of motion errors that can result in a stall condition. Automatic stall detection operates continuously once it has been initialized by the user. To initiate stall detection, the host simply specifies the number of encoder counts/step. Processor is driven by a host microprocessor using an 8- or 16-bit parallel bus, CANbus 2.0B, or an asynchronous serial port.