Re: Convince me (not) to buy a G540 for my Taig
I personally think that the gap has narrowed so much the expense is not warranted, There are other boards out there other than BOBS so that makes the G540 form factor is too restrictive. You are better off not locking yourself in and go with seperate drivers.
I used to use 48 volts but am now up around 80-90 volts. I now use AC powered drivers such as Italian made Lam Technologies DS10XXa series drives. They leave Gecko for dead. But I don't think they will meet your budget expectations. To get the best out of them, your motion controller needs to be able to use Lam's boost function that allows the motion controller manage the drive current. eg the drive only runs at maximum current while the power is needed (when accelerating) and the controller can reduce it significantly when idle or at constant velocity. This keeps the drive significantly cooler and allows you to get more power when you need it most. Some systems can't utilise this feature. Its fairly easy with Linuxcnc though.
So why would you do this? Well one of our engineering models shows we need 12.3 watts when accelerating but only 4.5 watts when at constant velocity. So once we get to cut speed, we only need 40% of the power to keep everything happy and running cool at faster velocities.
Rod Webster
www.vehiclemods.net.au