[drunkbilly]

A few years ago I built a MechMate router for a specific purpose. The machine has a cutting envelope of 72x144x8. This machine also has a very heavy gantry, well over 100lbs. I got tired of the poor performance of the crappy breakout board, the Geckos, the SmoothStepper, and the very noisy and hot steppers.

I replaced all that stuff with a Hicon Integra controller, four Teknic Clearpath NEMA 23 servos, and a single Teknic power supply. At first I was worried the little NEMA23's wouldn't be able to perform. But they have never failed once. They provide plenty of torque for the work I do, and they provide torque and performance to the machine limit.

Anyway, I'm very happy with these little 23's. I purchased the least expensive ones available, CPM-SDSK-2310S-RLN. They do not have the highest resolution controller, but in practice on my machine, I have found the lower resolution controller works just fine. I use the machine to cut aluminum, 2024-T3 and 6061-T6. I have used the machine to cut upgraded aviation instrument panels for Cessna Citation jets, Beechcraft King Air twin turbo props, and Mooney's. The instrument shop has been very happy with everything this machine has produced. I also use the machine to cut 1/2" aluminum motor plates and have cut aluminum thickness to one inch.

Sorry guys, I don't have theoretical answers for you. I can only report my experience with them. Are they the best NEMA 23 you can buy? Perhaps not! But they perform and do everything I ask of them.

Hey thanks for the great reply! That’s interesting for sure, does that machine have a rack an pinion similar the the crp machine? Roughly 1” travel per revolution. Also what sort of speeds are you seeing? Thanks again

[WilliamT4450]

A couple of years ago when I changed to the servos, I decided to build a little test routine, a test routine to simulate peck drilling. So I fired up Mach and sent the machine out to simulate peck drilling, 45 drill sites. This would exercise all axis over the entire surface of the machine.

Shortly after I started Mach, watching the first hole being pecked or perhaps the second one, I realized something was wrong. I looked at the X-axis servo, and of course it was running with the green light indicator on. Then I looked at the A-axis, the slave axis, seeing the amber light on, indicating that it was off line and not working, not contributing to the drive effort.

At first I panicked, then realizing that I accidentally forgot to plug in the 'step/direction' drive cable, then I thought, 'just let the program run and let's see what happens'. So I did just that. I let the program run without the A-axis contributing. It was interesting to watch the one little NEMA 23 Clearpath servo drag that big MachMate gantry around at 400-IPM over the entire length of the table without the A-axis. Keep in mind here, that one servo was dragging the weight of the Y-Axis, the weight of the Z-axis, and the weight of the router. All the while, the servo never quit running and returned back to the exact position from where it began. The A-axis of course did not return to its beginning point, but for a 7+foot gantry without slave contribution, that's to be expected.

Having speed of 400-IPM is good for me, and these servos can easily do more. But I keep the IPM settings quite a bit lower, for one, due to the dynamics of the large machine. Consider the servos driving a mass exceeding 100 lbs at 400IPM. A lot of mass in motion. So my machine is dialed back to about 100 or so.

I'm running rack and pinion, with belt drive transmissions - 4.5:1. When I bought the transmission boxes I told the guy I wanted decent precision and that I was not so concerned with speed. Since he had the 4.5:1 boxes already made up, I bought them. You can run the NEMA23's easily 3:1 and receive good speed and nice precision.

I offer this. Know your feeds and speeds and make certain you understand your program routine. These little servos will instantly break a 3/8" endmill, or bog down a 3-1/4 hp Porter Cable router. I know, cause I've done that!!!