[nic6911]

Hi, I am looking for drivers for a CNC mill. I have had a gecko g540 before and was impressed. I have also had the cheap boards from ebay TB6560, they are crap!
So anyone know the M542? Is it worth the money? Is it stable and is it able to produce high feedrates?
How is it compared to gecko?

Regards

[KOC62]

The M542 looks very close to a G540.
Since you were impressed with the G540, why did you not keep it?

Both the G540 and the M542 can do 300KHZ step pulse frequency. G540 is reliable and has a good reputation. Mind you, Mach 3 or EMC2 can't give these drivers anywhere near 300KHZ output. However, SmoothStepper claims it can.

The feedrate is determined by the horsepower required for your cutting bit, which includes the weight of the moving parts, the weight of your spindle (if its a moving gantry), lead screw efficiency, the amount of cutting depth, etc. Hence you can't simply look to a driver and ask if it can handle the feedrate. Your motors determine the amount of work it can do. Only after you have chosen your motors can you start looking for drivers to match your motors.

[nic6911]

Hi. I have sold the mill where my g540 was a part of the setup. I like building mills, not so much to use them I know that the feedrate is determined by the stepper also. But anyone who have tried the china board knows that the feedrate is really bad when using this board. With the same machine and a gecko the feedrate will be increased x10 or x100! a pulse frequency of 45khz is fine, 100khz would be overkill for my small mill. I bought a driver that looks a bit like the M542, but it should be of better quality.
It's from CNC4YOU.
Stepper Motor Driver 4.5A, 50V CNC Microstepping

The price is okay, about half of an g540 here in europe.. Also bought the steppers and breakoutboard from him. The prices are fair, so i will give it a try.

[H500]

The G540 contains refinements, such as resonance damping, to improve the performance. The M542 might be good also, but I have no idea. Unlike Geckodrive, the designer never shows up to participates in technical discussions.