Cheap drives?

[edferg]

I have two Taig CNC mills for my business and I'm always puzzled when people try to max out the top speed on these little machines.

If my business success was dependent on how fast I could rapid, I would be purchasing a different mill.

In my case, I have two mills running in parallel. Cheaper than trying to make one, more expensive mill, run twice as fast. And if one system goes down, I have 50% capacity rather than 0%.

Ed
Takin' it slow

[CROSSHATCH]

Ed- But see, for my business purposes, I need to speed up prototyping work.

The work I will be doing will PER PART: Will take almost 4 1/2 hours @ 20 IPM. I need too bang out a few parts so that when I do sell them, they will start to pay for the newer mill.


-Jason

[ger21]

Spin the motors real fast? Hmmmm

I watch mine running at 20 IPM (1/2" 10 TPI Acme thread) and thoes motors are running at about 78 RPM (now you know how old I am)

What would you do gear them way down with belts to get them to run faster at 20 IPM?

I see Joe's Hybrid running a 5 start Acme thread, and that motor would really run even slower.

Could you shed some more light over here. Guess I'm missing something.

20ipm with 1/2-10 acme is 200rpm. I've seen guys using 1/2-10 get up to 60-80ipm, 600-800 rpm. That's where parallel is better than series, it'll get you higher top speeds. 20 ipm is way to slow for a router.

Guys using 5 start acme are running at 250-300ipm and even faster. 300ipm with 5 start is still 600 rpm.

You really don't want to spin the motors faster to go the same speed, as you won't gain much.

[tooManyHobbies]

A drive like that ought to have a suitable dancing partner. We've called out new windings for 3.5A (fat)nema 23's in 2 and 3-stack. We should have them in about six weeks for any who are interested: www.homeshopcnc.com

Rick L.

Any word on how the new steppers are coming along?

Projected specs yet?

tom

[dmauch]

You would be at the top end of what your power supply can put out if all three motors were moving with full power at the same time.
But if you wire the motors for bipolar series then you will only draw 2.1 amps on the KL276-30-8 The 48VDC would be 12.5 times the bipolar series voltage rating so you are within Gecko's parameters for the correct power supply voltage. I think you will be more than delighted with the combination of the G540, your power supply and those motors. Not obtimum but very, very good.

Dan Mauch
www.camtronics-cnc.com

I will be using a 48 Volt 7.3 Amp PS; I'm afraid that if I set every axis to 3.5, I obviously won't achieve it's full performance.



Can I still see decent performance?


P.S. Dan, can you please fix your link so I can view your products, thanks.





-Jason

[LeeWay]

I tend to agree. Optimum isn't always needed to achieve good results with some of these combinations.
I was pleased as punch with a Xylotex board and 3 smaller 270 oz motors and a 28 VDC PS.
I was floored though when I used a 201 and a 48 VDC PS on those same motors. What a difference.

Every time I upgraded, I did get better results and finally got 300 IPM on both the mill and the router using Gecko's with only 3 amp motors. One with 62 VDC and the other with 72.

These machines are much bigger than the Taig. I think the 540's will surprise a lot of people especially if they haven't ran a gecko before.
I am pretty sure you will get good results and likely better than anticipated on the Taig. It took me a while to get up the nerve and confidence in the machine and it's computers to go with 300 IPM.
On the mill, it rearely ever even gets that fast. There just isn't enough room between rapid points to get up to speed and then slow again.

Put a top fuel dragster on a 32nd mile strip and see how fast it gets before it has to shut down. Likely not very fast.

I'm pretty sure 50 IPM on the Taig would be the same feeling.

[CROSSHATCH]

Awesome! Sounds good, any Promo codes for the 540 :P Sheesh just wondering before I order

lol


-Jason

[fretsman]

Ummm...I believe that boat has sailed -

[CROSSHATCH]

I ordered it! OMG! A miracle!


-Jason

[Me2]

Hello all,
This may seem a stupid question for most of you blokes, but where
does the logic ground terminal get connected to. Does it go to one of the parallel port pins? If so which one?

Cam

[Greolt]

Cam are you connecting directly to the LPT?

Pins 18 to 25 are ground.

If using a BoB then usually gnd is provided near the pin connections.

Greg

[Me2]

Thanks Greg,
Hook them up this weekend and see how they perform.

Cam

[Mr.Chips]

I am no longer on the VERGE, i have ordered my 4 G251's at the WONDERFUL price of $37.00 each.

I hope the manual has big easy to understand full color hookup pictures, and not too many terms called out that don't show up on the printing on the circuit board. But Hey, this is Gecko the Professionals.

Now I need to be on the lookout for a good but reasonable power supply to match.

Thank you all for your assistance.

The G251's arrived this afternoon!

Now to read and read and make some wiring diagrams all aimed at making a one time, first time perfect wireup.

Thanks :rainfro:
Hager

[Mariss Freimanis]

Mr. Chips,

I've been following your thoughtful posts. I'm the designer of the G251 so it's still my baby while it's new. What you may want to do is to bench-run it before you put it to work on a machine.

Bench-running means putting it on a desktop, wiring a motor to it, connecting a step and direction source (if Mach3, then in 'ports and pins' set STEP 'active high, in 'motor tuning' set step pulse width to 2 microseconds).

Find a 24VDC, 1A power supply. This is a little known secret; you cannot blow up a drive with such a supply no matter how badly you mess up motor or supply wiring. Get the drive to spin a motor with this setup. Once it does, move the whole shebang to your machine and use a more serious power supply (50VDC). Things should go smoothly then.

Thank you for trusting our product and my design enough to spend your money on it. I hope you will like it as much as I do; so much of my time and pleasure went into it.

Mariss

[Mr.Chips]

Mr. Chips,

I've been following your thoughtful posts. I'm the designer of the G251 so it's still my baby while it's new. What you may want to do is to bench-run it before you put it to work on a machine.

Bench-running means putting it on a desktop, wiring a motor to it, connecting a step and direction source (if Mach3, then in 'ports and pins' set STEP 'active high, in 'motor tuning' set step pulse width to 2 microseconds).

Find a 24VDC, 1A power supply. This is a little known secret; you cannot blow up a drive with such a supply no matter how badly you mess up motor or supply wiring. Get the drive to spin a motor with this setup. Once it does, move the whole shebang to your machine and use a more serious power supply (50VDC). Things should go smoothly then.

Thank you for trusting our product and my design enough to spend your money on it. I hope you will like it as much as I do; so much of my time and pleasure went into it.

Mariss

Mariss
I have a couple of smaller steppers that are on a 12" square XY table, it was part of an visual inspection device. Would these be OK to test with?
It would be the perfect little engraving table.
Hope the JPG is big enough to read. If not I'll post it in a DOC file.

[CROSSHATCH]

Hey Guys, I just ordered my 540 last night ! I want to finally run my coolant off m8 and m9 like I use to!

I have this relay board: http://www.cnc4pc.com/Store/osc/prod...products_id=50 I would like to use this Relay Board and control my coolant Pump.

Can I simply hook up the Rj connector right into the 540? Or do I need, like the 540 manual, have to run a wire to a certain gnd etc... The Pump gets hooked up directly the Relay board and power is used from the outlet.


All it is, is a switch.


-Jason

[LeeWay]

Jason, I would be careful with that particular relay board. I had one that actually went up in flames. It was controlling a PC router though, so possibly too high an amp draw.

I just went a different route now and just use the solid state relays. I have some for both DC operated equipment and AC. All activated by lower computer type DC voltages for control.

These are what I now use for the router and coolant pump.




These are easy to connect. Just use an input and a ground on the other side. Say pin 17 and 19 for example. Then just break the hot wire to your coolant switch as if it were another switch and connect each side to those terminals. This way you can turn it off to override the computer control.

[edferg]

Re: Solid State Relays

For my Taig mills I plan to do the following:
Use Crouzet/Gordos Solid State Relay Part# G240D25, 25 amp, 24-280 vac, 3-32 vdc input.
Remove the Taig power switch and faceplate.
Mount the solid-state relay inside the Taig motor switch box and add a blank face plate drilled to hold a small jack.
Wire jack to input side of solid state relay.
Wire switching side of relay to wires previously going to manual power switch.
Run low voltage control wires from the Gecko G540 terminal block pin 5, and 12V from PC, to a small mating plug.
If I need to power on the Taig manually, apart from the G540, I can plug in a 12 volt wall-wart to activate the relay.

Ed

[CROSSHATCH]

Leeway, I will look into it. I also have the other version, believe it's a C9. I have both.But I will look into your relay too!

Were you controlling the Spindle of the router? I can see that being "overdrawn". Anyway, I will look into it and be careful.


I really want to get back up and running with my coolant and stuff!


-Jason

[Adamj12b]

I received my 6 251's today and I must say that I am very impressed with how well they are put together. All the components are laid out very fancy and and impressive. I cannot wait to try them out on my machines.

OK. on to my problem. On 2 of the drives that I received, there is a transistor in the corner of the board right above the top of the cap that is very crooked. one is so bad that I believe that it is shorting with one of the pins on the transistor next to it. The other 4 are all straight.

Could I just reheat the solder on the messed up ones to straighten them? Dose it even matter that there crooked?

My other question is: what is with the small jumper wire going across the same edge of the board?

Its not a major problem right away as I only need 3 for my machine. The other 3 are for future machine features/robotics. Whichever come first. I hope I have some time tonight to try them out.!

-Adam