[Smertrios]

I have the following components I am putting together to use with my TAIG...

$284 - 3 size 23 servo motors from www.kelinginc.net
$353 - 3 geckodrive 320's
$109 - 35v 15amp torroid power supply
$45 - 3 CPU cooling fans & thermal compound
$50 - other items like wire, terminal connectors, crimping tool...
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$841 (first 3 item prices include s/h)

servo motors - When these arrived first thing I did was install the encoders. I was surprised to find out the 2 installation tools needed for the encoder were not included. I had a set from another project so that was not a problem for me. I have not used these motors under CNC control but am impressed by the low sound level and smooth motion when moving my TAIGs x,y,z axis under power of a 6v and 12v wallwort. (6V does not move the Z very well but 12 is plenty)

power supply - the motors are rated 35v, 4 amps continuous with 19 amps peak so this should be plenty for 4 axis even tho I am only using 3.

cooling fans - hoping these will clamp onto the geckodrive or at the very least attach to the drives with little modification. Not the cheapest way to cool but also far from the most expensive. 3 12v fans wired in series also works well with my powersupply.

other items - I am mounting everything to a wooden board (one shipped with my TAIG). For the wiring I will probably do a little soldering but most of the larger wires are connected using crimp terminals.

If I spent about $150 more I could have a nice enclosure and cables that plugged into it but I am taking a more slapped together approach using terminal crimp connectors for the larger wires and screwing the components to a board my TAIG was shipped on =)

The only thing I really have a question about right now is which wire in the parallel port cable is the "common". My assumption right now is that its the un-insulated wire that shows low resistance when I touch one end of my tester to the wire and the other end to the plugs metal case.

[juzwuz]

http://www.beyondlogic.org/spp/parallel.htm

Hi! The step/dir signal ground are pins 18 through 25 on the parallel port. Looking at the female port in the back of the computer, the number 1 pin is the top right and counting from right to left, the numbers are 1 through 13. The bottom row from right to left are numbered 14 through 25. You would use pins 2 through 9 for the step/dir signals. Note pins 18 through 25 are not power supply ground. Hope this helps!

It took me a while to hook up my stepper motors, drives, and computer on my Taig mill. Now I'm trying to learn about proper feeds and spindle speeds for different materials and CAD/CAM software.

[Smertrios]

Thanks for the link juzwuz!

I have a pic of the www.kelinginc.net servos on my TAIG and the steppers sold with the Xylotec controller I believe they are 269oz size to show a size comparison (servos are a tight fit for my enclosure). I know many have had good luck with steppers but to me with my TAIG they are a menace because of the resonance and lack of any dampening at certain speeds. Plus they just lack any oomph at fairly slow "rapid" speeds and would loose steps.

The servos will have *alot* of power my main concern now is with vibration at high speeds due to slight mis-alignment at the flex couplers... I believe these servos have the power to turn the screws fast enough for over 100 IPM rapids but not sure if that is going to generate alot of heat and possibly wear out the nuts faster than if I was limiting the speed. There is also some talk about 25KHZ being the "cleanest" speed to use with mach... I would use TurboCNC if I needed more speed since it can output pulses at a much faster rate by not running ontop of the windows operating system... TurboCNC is also easy to use and free just too bad it only works with MS-DOS.

20 TPI screw, 25KHZ mach setting, 1200 QUAD encoders = 1250 RPM, 57.7 IPM max
20 TPI screw, 35KHZ mach setting, 1200 QUAD encoders = 1750 RPM, 87.5 IPM max
20 TPI screw, 45KHZ mach setting, 1200 QUAD encoders = 2205 RPM, 112.5 IPM max

Also have a pic of the heatsinks... After removing the steel heatsink clips, drilling 4 6-32 holes in the bottom of the CPU heatsink for mounting the geckodrive and then mounting them to my board I will be ready to start connecting the wires.