[telmnstr]

Hello all!

I'm trying to decide weather or not to go with a G540 from Gecko for my CNC build.

I've built it out of 45mm x 90mm Bosch extrusions, NSK linear slides and have a C2 5" Z axis on the way with mount for a Bosch palm router.

Steppers will be Nema 23.

Fan cooled, do you think the Gecko 540 would be good enough? I don't need the 4th axis, but will be buying used to meet budget requirements.

[vtx1029]

Heck yea the g540 will rock it

[dougmsbba]

Get the Gecko g540 if you can. No kidding, it's a great controller.

I just got done upgrading my home built CNC with it, and love it!

[Dylwad]

+1 I run a 24x48x7" machine with G250's and fast acme screws and can get up to 700 ipm, at .00025" per step. Outperforms an older machine running nema 34's with gecko's. Keling has steppers matched perfectly to the 540 at 48 volts

[telmnstr]

Nice! Thanks for the confirmation!

We've got a 6 axis robot arm at our hackerspace and have 3 axis wired into G203V's (I think that is the model, the largest geckodrive.) It runs fine even with the controllers set down to 3 amps, but the motors have large gearboxes so I wasn't sure.

My earlier failure of a router build used a 4 axis Chinese driver board, and it was abysmal. Lost steps everywhere, no way to adjust motor current, etc.

[msimpson99]

This is a early test in my KRMx02 build. Its using G540 and Nema 23's.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FUWVtiH9ow]KEMx02 Rapids test - YouTube[/ame]

[pencilneck]

I got the G540 based on everyone's input here and I had one major issue that is easy enough to solve... I was having a lot of issue with missing steps due to the G540 getting too hot.

A friend and I milled out a large heat sink to put on the bottom of it and I've got 2 old fans from desktop power supplies to move air across the heat sink, problem solved.



I used a very large bastard file to smooth out the bottom of the G540 and then put a thin layer of thermal paste on it (use a razor blade to apply) and then a bit of wire holds the heat sink in place.

I'm running at 40-ish volts as I recall.

[CarveOne]

This is recommended in the Gecko documentation, if the motor current is above a certain level. It doesn't hurt to do this for all installations no matter what the expected load current level is.

[msimpson99]

Make sure the power supply has plenty ventilation as well. I have had the whole thing shut down cause the powersupply over heated.