SureStep Pro Software Quick Start from AutomationDirect

Using the SureStep Pro software to configure your Advanced micro-stepping drives from AutomationDirect is easy. You can download the software for free from the AutomationDirect website here under downloads, scroll down to the SureStep section and that will take you to the software here. Install it and you are ready to go. No product key or licenses required. If you HAVE to have a CD, then you can buy a copy for about ten bucks. But the download version is the complete full version and again it’s totally free. The Advanced micro-stepping drives come with an RS232 cable you can plug directly into your PC’s serial port or if you don’t have a serial port you can use a compatible USB to serial adapter. We’ll be using this USB to serial adapter from AutomationDirect because it’s been tested with this software so we know it’s going to work. We do need to apply power to the drive so we can configure it. But you don’t have to connect the motor or control signals just to configure the drive … though I did go ahead and connect them for this demo. Ok, now that we are all wired up and the software is installed, open the software and select the PC’s com port you are using. Windows can assign the USB to Serial converter to any com port, so I usually just search for the device manager, go to the device manager, ports, and see my USB adapter is on this com port, so I put that here. Now we just select the drive we’re using and select the motor we’re using. We can select the mode here, but we don’t actually need that for this initial test. To see if we’re connected properly, we’ll just do a self test. It tells the drive to rotate the motor a half turn in each direction like this and it is completely independent of any mode you’ve configured for the drive. How cool is that? Before selecting the mode, doing any configuration tweaking or controller programming, we already know the system is wired and functioning properly. To get the firmware rev of the drive, just issue any command that reads from the drive. You could do an upload from the drive, for example, but I usually bring up the status monitor so I can see what the drive is doing and that automatically fills in the firmware rev. We’ll cover the status monitor in the next video where we walk through ALL the features of the SureStepPro software so you can get the most out of your SureStep system. The firmware rev also updates automatically IF you have the correct com port selected when you power up the drive. If you have any questions about using the SureStepPro software, please contact AutomationDirect’s free award winning support team during regular business hours – they will be happy to help. And don’t forget the forums. There are lots of automation Professionals there that love to share their years of experience. Just don’t post any questions directed at AutomationDirect’s support team there – they don’t monitor the forums on a regular basis.