I have an application in which I move two stepper motors by identical amounts. Each motor has an encoder and I want to be sure that both motors are moving and that thee difference in their reported encoder positions throughout the move is less than a chosen maximum.

My understanding: The OE command would do this, except is doesn't work for stepper motors unless one is using Stepper Position Maintenance Mode, YS =1. However in SPM, the error which triggers OE is a preset limit of three full motor steps. This seems to be too restrictive,, i.e. I always trigger OE when commanding a move. If OE is not enabled the moves complete with little error.

I am wondering what the best way of monitoring the difference between the two encoder might be? Should I create a second task to do this? Or is sufficient to create a loop which executes after begin motion, checking encoder difference and whether motion is complete.

Ideas, advice appreciated. I am relatively new to programming Galil motion controllers.

Thanks