[phomann]

Nice work. I think you will find comparable results with all controllers if the voltages are the same. I have 3 different ones and I have run a few of my machines on all of them. I cant tell a difference. They have different options and packaging. Hobby Cnc Pro, G540 (2 actually) and a PMDX-126/5056D combo.

Thanks.

I basically agree with your statements. A stepper driver is providing power to the motors. So a G540 running at 48V and 3.5A will provide the same power to a 387 oz.in motor that it would to a 570 oz.in motor.

In fact, with this setup the 387 oz.in should perform better than the 570 oz.in motor as the latter has a greater detent force than the 387 oz.in motor and will consume more of the power to overcome this.

secondly, the G540 (and all Geckodrives) has mid-band resonance compensation that will stop the motor consuming power just to overcome this resonance as happens with other makes of stepper drives.

And thirdly, the Geckodrives morph from microstepping to fullstepping once the speed passes 3-4 revs/second. This results in the power being available more quickly and thus better performance from the motors.

I'm sure that the G540 and the 387 oz.in motors will provide adequate performance, but I want to do a comparison to see if the bigger motors and drives are justified.


Cheers,

Peter.

[waltpermenter]

and plus you want to boost sales of the drives you sell, right?
walt

[hndswthtshdws]

So what if he is doing this to boost sales?

The G540 is a proven design friendly to beginners. When I converted my BF20 I would have used a G540 if I could have found a successful build thread with real data in it.

[phomann]

Walt,

It's not the intention of the conversion.

That said, I'm happy to promote good products that I sell. Obviously, I'm going to use Geckodrives in my conversions as I am the Australian Distributor. Also, I believe the Geckodrives are the best drives around, and I'm happy to point out their superior technology. The Geckodrives are so good its why a leading Chinese drive manufacture blatantly copied the Geckodrive 201.

I also really believe in supporting small home grown companies that have old fashioned values. Their technical people are leaders in the field, and their service is excellent. And all their drives are manufactured by themselves in the USA.

When all the political leaders in the USA are saying "We need to support USA manufacturing", it is beyond my comprehension that so many Americans don't buy their locally produced stepper drives.

I could understand it if the local products were outrageously expensive or not up to scratch, but when the local product is better and a similar price. I don't get it.

In the end I doubt that I'll see a change in my sales. Australia is such a small market and I don't see why people in the USA would purchase of me when the Geckodrives are so competitively priced in the USA.

If I wanted to boost sales I'd do an upgrade project for those shocking Toshiba chip based driver boards in the Chinese 6040 routers. I reckon 20% of my G540 sales are to replace those.

Cheers,

Peter

[waltpermenter]

very nice sales pitch peter.
walt

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Peter,

You're feeding a troll....

[phomann]

Not any more....

Thanks for the heads-up

Cheers,

Peter.

[waltpermenter]

Peter,

You're feeding a troll....

shut up kabibble, just because someone posts a comment you don't want to answer doesn't make them a troll. mind your own business.
walt

[phomann]

A bit more progress on the Y-Axis.

I made up the following parts for the Y-axis over the weekend.

• Bearing block support
• Spacer
• Stepper plate

The Bearing block support is made up of two 12mm thick pieces of Corian. When I make the "Real" piece out of aluminium, I'll use a single piece 20mm thick, or two 10mm thick plates. The FK12 bearing block is 17mm deep, so having the bearing block support 20mm thick will reduce the extension on the front of the machine by 4mm.

You can see in the photo showing the ballscrew that I've left the clearance to reduce the bearing block support thickness.

The Spacer will also end up being made from 10mm aluminium plate as well in the final version.

The stepper plate will eventually be made out of 12mm aluminium plate as well.

[phomann]

You can see from the photos that when the saddle is fully forward it projects right across the bearing block supports and stepper plate, with very little clearance. In fact you can see the saddle deflecting the belt

The photos show two 28 tooth pulleys as I messed up the belt lengths and I didn't have a belt the right length for the 20 tooth pulleys which I plan to use for a 1:1 drive.
Although 20 tooth pulleys will clear the saddle, they would not clear the inside of the cover that will fit over the stepper plate.

I'm thinking of trying 16 or 18 tooth pulleys for a direct drive. Hopefully there will be enough teeth in contact with the belt.

I also have plans to put an idler bearing onto the stepper plate to deflect the belt away from the saddle if I want to use the 28 tooth pulley for a gear reduction drive.

Cheers,

Peter.

[phomann]

I wired up a 387 oz.in motor on the X-Axis to a Gecko G540 with a 1:1 belt ratio using 20 tooth pulleys.

I am getting 8000mm/min or a bit over 300 in/min. I had the Z column laying on the table to provide a bit of moving mass.

I tried 9000mm/min but was getting intermittent stalls.

I still need to do a lot more testing, but its looking like I might stick with the Gecko G540 and the 387 oz.in motors.

Cheers,

Peter

[Fastest1]

There is nothing wrong with the G540.

[phomann]

I managed to start the Z-axis conversion over the weekend.
The new nut holder is to be made in two parts. This is so that it can be assembled into the column. The larger size of the RM2005 ballnut in comparison to the original nut makes it impractical to make the nut holder in piece.

The images below shows the original nut holder and the new one

[phomann]

The larger part of the nut holder is a 50mm cube. I now need to drill the bolt pattern for the Z-nut and drill a clearance hole for the 20mm ballscrew.

The small piece of the nut holder has the boss turned and tapped (M8) to attach to the Z-Slide.

The two parts of the Z-Nut holder will be bolted together with two M6 bolts.

I still need to remove 3mm from the bottom of the smaller piece to get the total length of the new nut holder correct.

I'm thinking about removing this 3mm by turning a boss (20mm dia) that will then fit into a matching hole in the larger part of the nut holder.

This will provide a positive locking fit rather than the two M6 bolts holing the weight of the head.

I'm not sure if a boss is required so any input is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Peter.

[phomann]

Grant and his apprentice have kindly offered to build me a new Mill stand, and it is coming along nicely.

The basic plan is depicted in the attached drawing. The stand will have 4 locking rotating casters along with adjustable feet. The idea is that the feet will lift the stand off the casters once manoeuvred into place. I got this idea from my Yamaha Pick and place machine.

[phomann]

The casters and adjustable feet have turned up.

The casters I were from here
TE21TPB_HB GREY RUBBER CASTORS - Castors2Go

The Feet were from here.
legs adjustable nylon stainless steel foot feet disc

The ones I chose have a 90mm base, with a M16 thread and 160mm long.

[mrcodewiz]

I did my Z in 2 parts as well. It has held up fine so far.

hth

[phomann]

Hi,

Thanks for the picture. It give me a few Ideas on attaching the two parts.

Cheer,

Peter

[phomann]

The stand my friend is building is almost done.

The dimensions are 1000mm x 50mm. The stand was built as the original stand that came with the mill needs to be bolted down, or at the very least have sandbags or some other substantial weight inside the stand to keep it from toppling over. I had put the original stand on a movable base which seemed to compound the stability problem.

The new stand has 4 rotating and locking casters so I can easily manoeuvre it around. The 2 fixed and 2 rotating casters on the base I bought seemed to restrictive, so I went with the 4 rotating casters.

The stand also has 4 16mm screw jacks that will be used to lift the stand off the casters and level the machine.

Hopefully it will make the mill a lot more stable.

I plan to mount the controller into an electrical enclosure cabinet that will sit on the shelf under the mill.

Cheers,

Peter

[otto_pjm]

The next step was to test the stepper motor mounting onto the table while mounted onto the mill saddle and base to check the clearances.

All looks good so far .

Peter

Sorry to jump back so far, I've been reading your thread after you pointed it out to me in Hoss's thread, and it looks great. I'm going to steal all kinds of ideas . I happen to have a bunch of the same Corian too, it's too thick for proper lithophanes. I hadn't thought of prototyping mounts with it but that's a great idea. I have a CNC router and it cuts Corian quite well, but really struggles making clean cuts in AL.

My main question, is what is the clearance of the Nem23 motor and the saddle like when you run the X axis all the way to the (Right, I think on your setup) I have a G0704, so we may have different clearance amounts, but I'm curious if you motor crosses over the saddle, and if so how much room do you have to spare? Will you put a plate or cover over the motor, and how thick can it be to match the table height?



Great build thread, sorry about all the questions, I'm really excited about the possibilities you've got me thinking about!

Thanks

Pete