[CesarM]

I'm resurrecting my mill from storage. Seeing it again after 20 years brings back fond memories. I went from zero to ... well enough to create some aluminum molds for a Kevlar/fiberglass canopy pod for a composite discus launch RC glider I designed. Only thing I needed to upgrade was to get the more powerful 1/5 H.P. Dayton spindle motor (yes the original was weaker). Despite what I read at the time, it can do aluminum, if you let the bit (HSS at the time) do the work and go real sloooow.

I'd like to fire her up again to make a series of programmed holes in an a couple of aluminum spacer disks, which wouldn't be as much fun using my drill press. Anyway all that nostalgia and story to ask, does anyone have the technical specs for the NAXNC 10 OL NEMA 23 stepper (2001 model)? The model number is: SPSST55D2C040. The 2004 models use a different make. Of course I'm asking because I no longer have the documents. And the the DOS era control box was lost during a move, so I'm going to attempt using StepperOnline DM542T drivers to Arduino or Raspberry PI to Windows 11 laptop.

It's has a 5 pin connector. My DMM tells me that the 2 coils measure ~215 ohms and the center taps are connected together (5th pin). So, I'm assuming for now coil A is pin 1, 2 and coil B is pin 3,4. I don't know the polarity or the required power supply, and whether the DM542T can even drive the proper max. current. It can go as low as 1A, but with those high R coils, I'm now wondering if these motors can even take 1A. With the high coil resistance, were they designed to run at a high voltage/low current drive? I don't want to find out the hard way and sink any money on this by having to replace the motors.

I'm surprised that I couldn't find the specs on these; they're only 20 years old. ;-) Thanks for a point in the right direction.

[awerby]

This seems to be the day to wander down memory lane - but it's getting pretty foggy out there...

The steppers on those machines were nothing special; IIRC they were made by Pacific Scientific, which was absorbed by Kollmorgen. You might be able to look up the serial numbers here to get the specs. https://www.kollmorgen.com/en-us/ser...-pacsci-motors If not, pretty much any NEMA 23 steppers with 150+ oz-in of holding torque and low enough inductance will work.

A rule of thumb is that the square root of the inductance times 32 gives you the voltage your power supply should supply to ensure good top-speed performance for your steppers. It should also be able to supply the amperage listed on the motor's nameplate, times the number of steppers you're running at a time. Just make sure that your drivers can handle the voltage and current.

That old DOS control box was no great loss; the TIP 120 transistors in there used to overheat and lean into each other, causing all sorts of fun to ensue. Just about anything you build will perform better.

[CesarM]

This seems to be the day to wander down memory lane - but it's getting pretty foggy out there...

The steppers on those machines were nothing special; IIRC they were made by Pacific Scientific, which was absorbed by Kollmorgen. You might be able to look up the serial numbers here to get the specs. https://www.kollmorgen.com/en-us/ser...-pacsci-motors If not, pretty much any NEMA 23 steppers with 150+ oz-in of holding torque and low enough inductance will work.

A rule of thumb is that the square root of the inductance times 32 gives you the voltage your power supply should supply to ensure good top-speed performance for your steppers. It should also be able to supply the amperage listed on the motor's nameplate, times the number of steppers you're running at a time. Just make sure that your drivers can handle the voltage and current.

That old DOS control box was no great loss; the TIP 120 transistors in there used to overheat and lean into each other, causing all sorts of fun to ensue. Just about anything you build will perform better.

Thanks for the lead. I now know that my motors were before the Pacific scientific octagonal ones. Theyre round and have MaxNC on the label. Since the resistance is so high, I'm guessing I'll have to go at a high voltage low current. If I can't find any info I'll try wiring a known resistance in series with it and use my oscilloscopes function generator to determine the inductance, and use your rule of thumb. But I bet they're using very thin wires in a long coil, so I'm afraid of pushing too much current through them.