[MikeRenz]

OMG

google search query: gecko drive

first link given: http://www.geckodrive.com


I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest you take up a less demanding hobby...like walking and chewing gum or something (chair)

well gee, i'm sorry to have wasted your time. I was merely wondering if theres a good place to order from. Yes i'd come to the gecko website, but they are more expensive direct from gecko than from keling...so I thought that maybe someone just happened to have another resource that matches keling's prices.


i am going to go out on a limb here and suggest you take up a more friendly personality...one that doesn't include you being an ass to someone respectably asking for some guidance.

[KTP]

Oh, I misunderstood your post. I thought you were saying you couldn't find a place to buy the Gecko drives. I do apologize for the walk/chew gum comment, it appeared you were being lazy in your research. Now I see you were just wanting a cheaper alternative to the list prices charged by Gecko. I can respect that.

I do think your animosity toward Keling (when you said gee, I spent hundreds of dollars from him and only want 30 minutes of his time) might be misplaced. How can you know what his time is worth? Maybe he is only making a very small profit on your order. Of course if he really is selling a tested working controller that arrives missing parts or not working, then he gets what he deserves.

This is exactly the reason I stopped selling the Pixie servo controller (and I sold a tested, fully assembled, professionally soldered smt board). People would either hook them up backwards and blow them up, then want to send them back for repair or replacement, or they would make me spend hours on the phone (usually on my dime) talking them through step by step of how to wire up their old control system. Since it was a low volume product, I was only making a small amount of profit when you count the cost of dud boards or replacments. When you factored in the time spent testing, packing, shipping, talking on the phone solving problems, I think I was making around $4/hr.

Who would want to work for $4 an hour? Especially now when in this obama-nation I am going to have to pay more than $2 of that to the government.

[dneisler]

Where are you located? Maybe someone close could assist you. I would be willing if you where close to Paris, Texas.

[MikeRenz]

Oh, I misunderstood your post. I thought you were saying you couldn't find a place to buy the Gecko drives. I do apologize for the walk/chew gum comment, it appeared you were being lazy in your research. Now I see you were just wanting a cheaper alternative to the list prices charged by Gecko. I can respect that.

I do think your animosity toward Keling (when you said gee, I spent hundreds of dollars from him and only want 30 minutes of his time) might be misplaced. How can you know what his time is worth? Maybe he is only making a very small profit on your order. Of course if he really is selling a tested working controller that arrives missing parts or not working, then he gets what he deserves.

This is exactly the reason I stopped selling the Pixie servo controller (and I sold a tested, fully assembled, professionally soldered smt board). People would either hook them up backwards and blow them up, then want to send them back for repair or replacement, or they would make me spend hours on the phone (usually on my dime) talking them through step by step of how to wire up their old control system. Since it was a low volume product, I was only making a small amount of profit when you count the cost of dud boards or replacments. When you factored in the time spent testing, packing, shipping, talking on the phone solving problems, I think I was making around $4/hr.

Who would want to work for $4 an hour? Especially now when in this obama-nation I am going to have to pay more than $2 of that to the government.

No harm no foul. I went through some of your other posts to see what kind of background you have here and i see i just come off as a stupid newb probably asking the same questions you see around here weekly.

I don't have animosity towards keling...just upset that i've spent so much time and $ only to still be not up and running. I admittedly am no EE, but have friends that work on stuff like this all the time and they couldn't get it to work either (the build your own kit). So i surrended defeat and was happy that keling was willing to take the stuff back, which is why i was then willing to buy the tested kit from him. I am just positive that either the thing was not truly tested, or the wiring came lose in shipping. But i have a tough time believing it was the latter.

I can appreciate what you say about $4/hr wages...i'm all too familiar with this. I run/own two companies - the main one that pays the bills, one that serves as a hobby (and operates at a loss partly due to what you describe above). This mill will fall into the hobby side of things if i can get it working. Thankfully i have friends that are true precision machinists and they've helped me out with things i can't do with this mill being dead weight.



I'm located in State College, PA. Home of Penn State University. I should probably just take it to the EE building on campus and find some grad student and trade him some ramen noodles in exchange for his help.

[KTP]

Ya you can't really make money at hobby cnc stuff unless you get exactly the right niche like Marris did with the Gecko stepper and servo drives. He picked exactly the right product that would have the widest target market. He can sell to somebody building a wood router out of popsicle sticks, duct tape and glue and also sell to someone retrofitting a 7000 pound cnc bedmill.

The real money nowadays is in stuff like an application for your iphone that makes it remotely fart

If you use the resources here on cnczone I am quite sure you could fix your controller and wiring yourself with just a few simple tools like a multimeter and possibly an oscilloscope. A EE degree is really only required to get a job in the real world. I actually knew several EEs where I used to work who did not even really understand how an RC filter worked. They crammed for the tests and then promptly forgot everything.

[project5k]

ramen aint worth what it used to be....

Paris texas? I'm in Seguin! Howdy Neighbor!

well, when you decide which way you want to go.. and if that direction is towards the gecko 203v's I and many others on here will vouch for thier support, and quality of product. You hook it up one time, (correctly) and it works.... and works, and works...

[MikeRenz]

ramen aint worth what it used to be....

Paris texas? I'm in Seguin! Howdy Neighbor!

well, when you decide which way you want to go.. and if that direction is towards the gecko 203v's I and many others on here will vouch for thier support, and quality of product. You hook it up one time, (correctly) and it works.... and works, and works...

looks like you have a similar setup. I'm going to try the thing on a barebones pc that i have nothing else installed on..just to make sure it wasn't something interfering with Mach. Although i did go through the Mach setup stuff and the screen that shows the refresh rates (or whatever its called...its been months and months since i toyed with this) had no spikes and seemingly should have worked fine.

Maybe i'll spend my friday night dorking it up with this thing. :idea: Sounds like a blast!