stepper control micrologix 1400 for dummys

Looking at possibly using a stepper motor/drive to index a conveyor on a stand along packaging type machine that will index 12 inches each time it cycles. Any advice on how to control a stepper with a micrologix 1400? Have never used a stepper. In the past we always used a AC motor and AC inverter to accomplish this. Thanks

power rating for stepper motor to run the conveyor ?

The micrologix 1400 will communicate with a Kinetix 300 servo drive over Ethernet. It can't communicate with the 350 or anything higher unfortunately. But if the load requirements are low enough to where you can use a 300, there is sample code for this setup.

thanks, not sure of the load at the moment. The mechanics have not all been designed yet. I have been asked to think about using a stepper motor/drive since the boss saw something similiar at a trade show. Where can i find the sample program?
I saw that a third party company (AMCI) also markets a stepper drive module for the micrologix. Will this increase the size of what could be driven over the factory outputs?
My experience is almost all AC drives and some servo applications and if we use a stepper will be my first.

Don't know much about the Kinetix 300 (looks like it can output step and direction) but the AMCI most certainly needs a Stepper Driver (like a servo amp) in addition to the stepper module. Look at the catalog sheets - I do see 1400 listed.
The stepper driver needs to be matched with the stepper motor and it provides the necessary power to the motor.

I have done quite a few applications with stepper motors and a couple with the ML1400. It's fairly straight forward using the high speed outputs. You just supply a direction signal as one of the outputs and the pulse signal from one of the high speed outputs. Use in conjunction with the PTOX function file.

One thing to note is that stepper motors typically use no feedback, so it is assumed the motor has enough torque to complete each step. If the motor cannot complete the step it will get out of sync with the drive and get into a kind of lock step where it chatters until the steps sync back up with the drive. At that point it lost position.

It's fairly economical to get a drive and motor from AutomationDirect to experiment with (a small motor and drive for around $100). You can run the drive off 24VDC. If you hook up the motor and drive without the PLC, you can take a wire or switch to supply pusles to the drive to get a feel for how it works and the microstepping.