[LeeWay]

I think they would sell pretty well. I am, however spoiled by the 203V's. Now that I know what they are capable of, I doubt I'll be dressing down on any of my new machines.

[ger21]

Do you want to be the WalMart of stepper drives ?

Do you shop at Walmart for top quality made in the USA products? These drives will be made in the USA, and be top quality like all the other Gecko drives. I don't see where Walmart connection.

[jalessi]

Walmart in fact does sell some American made products however the last time I checked they did not sell stepper drives.

I think the point is that Gecko will be manufacturing (Ghetto-Drive) a drive that is priced very competitively.

Most people will be happy to save money and some will object for unfounded reasons.

[Mariss Freimanis]

Why would you want to lower the price of cnc that low? There would be no margin for your resellers. Whats the point.
Do you want to be the WalMart of stepper drives ?

It is the same as "aiming high" to clear hurdles standing between you and a goal. All our drive prices are a fixed multiple of the component cost; that's why we have weird list prices. This multiplier insures the biz is successful; it pays the utilities, rent, capital equipment purchasing for growth, salaries of the production people and office staff. It also supports non-productive people like myself so that I can design new stuff.

The Cheap Drive is a design exercise to see just how inexpensive a quality drive can be. The component cost budget is $6; every penny increase adds a nickel to the list price. If the budget is met, the price will be $30; if it's not, you'll know from the list price by how much it went over budget goal.

If I could design a drive with $0.20 worth of parts we would sell it for $1. Any price not tied to the cost of production is based on perceived value and that's greedy.

Mariss

[Mariss Freimanis]

High Seas,

The MOSFETs will be 15A to 20A rated, not the drive. The drive will be rated at 3A. The Cheap Drive will have no heatsinking. This means the MOSFETs have to be very efficient at 3A which requires 20A transistors when you do the math. The G203V is rated at 7A, has heatsinking and uses 33A rated 100V MOSFETs. It's what keeps it out of trouble when mistakes happen in application and use.

Mariss

[keithorr]

Hi,

I'm interested to know what your thoughts are if Geckodrive should
produce an inexpensive, board-level drive. Target specs are:

Target price: $29 single quantity.
Mariss

think you're aiming low enough? who are you trying to attract?

Apparently you have too much money and want to work harder, make less, and spend all your time answering tech questions.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should, but it's your life. Some have stated that smoking a pack a day for a week shortens your life one day. What's the formula for determining how many days you loose for every 20 inexpensive drives? Is it worth the brownie points?

Your work is good enough as it is.

[joecnc2006]

think you're aiming low enough? who are you trying to attract?

Apparently you have too much money and want to work harder, make less, and spend all your time answering tech questions.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should, but it's your life. Some have stated that smoking a pack a day for a week shortens your life one day. What's the formula for determining how many days you loose for every 20 inexpensive drives? Is it worth the brownie points?

Your work is good enough as it is.

If you read his post he is not loosing, he will be maintaining the same profit margin he does with the rest of his products.

Don't you think he knows what he is doing? he sure has been at it long enough, many many years, before any of us was ever into CNC. So my buess is YES he knows ! ! ! ! !

Joe

[.xXACEXx.]

i just stumbled on this post,and im no expert in ANY thing but as i have bounced the ideas around in my head for over a year now about building a cnc router,a few things keep sticking to my noggin...
1) even at $120.00 a drive,(or $360.00 for 3 axis) that is outta my "beginner" atage altho i "think " that would be the best drives to use but alas im cheap and havent made any progress as of yet so..
2)a cheap drive would be GREAT but it does involve work to get to that point ,would i buy one? ...well i would think it would be alot like every other drive on the market if made cheap,so i would still prolly shy away from it ,just to get the gecko's as i hear they are nearly indestructable that is thier biggest and best point as i understand it(again im just a guy who hasnt built anything,still lookin,and just going on what i have read or seen)
3)in reality i wish i had the best gecko made and that i could get 100 of them for $100.00 dollars (again my cheap side showing thru) but i think also alot of guys want the best geckos to get better and not to spend time on some thing that is "less than gecko quality" but spend more time on development for the best gecko's like the stepper "servo driver"

these are just points to ponder in NO way a critisisim as im just a guy who wants a cnc and aint even made any real effort to build a cnc yet.not wanting to step on toes or anything,and yall prolly already have thought of these things..in that case ..just forget reading my post...

[ger21]

When can we expect to be able to order these.

[routerman]

It is the same as "aiming high" to clear hurdles standing between you and a goal.

I guess hurdles are your competition. So aiming very low will help you clear (out) them all.

There are lots of other companies on this website that make a good stepper drive, but don't have the equiptment or buying power to make any drive that cheap.
So, just like walmart your big box store mentality trys to crush the competition.

The US economy is in bad shape because of loosing jobs to cheap chinese products, but your price would be less than 1/2 of what guys like Keling ( who imports from china and is just trying to make a living) sell drives for.

[jhowelb]

I like the idea of cheap drives for projects involving low power and "student" level technology. The proposed drives would be perfect for a classroom project, a tinker toy for the garage or back room, a label cutter for equipment fabricators and dozens of other applications where the builder cannot justify several thousand bucks nor the space for full sheet routers.

I would add one other thing to the wish list. An economical power supply to match the drives in say a four drive array.

For a continuous or heavy duty application, the 203V takes the cake walking away and will continue to be my favorite component.

[kreutz]

I guess hurdles are your competition. So aiming very low will help you clear (out) them all.

I don't see it that way. Actually, Geckos are one step above the "competition"(?), and there is no need to consider cheap 2 or 3 Amps drive manufacturers or resellers as if they were taking any piece of the higher end stepper drive market pie. Everything takes its own place and another cheap drive (with above the standard features) is a welcomed product.

People who buy on that market segment won't buy more expensive drives because their budget, to satisfy their CNC/Robotics curiosity, is limited. As soon as the "CNC bug" gets them they will invest into the serious hobby and lower end industrial kind of drives while trying to overcome the limitations of the cheap drives. Why not to offer something better than the Allegro chips can offer to that segment of the market?

Mariss' entrance into the lower price stepper drive market could also shake the stepper drive IC market by making his solution attractive to printers' manufacturers who are the intended market for those ICs, and that will probably motivate some IC manufacturers into developing better ICs.

[LeeWay]

I gotta say that if a lower end drive can be made better and at a lower cost, then it is up to the other guys to keep up. I have only bought from one other besides Gecko's and that was Xylotex. I had good experience with them and got my feet wet. I was floored when I saw for myself how much difference there was between just a 201 and the Xylotex. I was intending to use the Xylotex on my little mini lathe conversion, but it will be Gecko 203's. I sold the Xylotex stuff to another newbie and I am sure it will serve him well. The price I got for a two year old used Xylotex is almost exactly what three of these Ghetto drives are slated for. I think Xylotex will still hold it's own in the market. They are easier to wire up and for a beginner, that is a big statement. It helped nail it down as my first drive.
I say go for it.

[routerman]

I like the idea of cheap drives for projects involving low power and "student" level technology. The proposed drives would be perfect for a classroom project,

When cnc is worthless schools wont bother teaching it, just like what happened to machineshop in schools

even at $120.00 a drive,(or $360.00 for 3 axis) that is outta my "beginner" atage altho i "think " that would be the best drives to use but alas im cheap and havent made any progress as of yet so..

So, most of you guys would be really happy if you could build a cnc machine for about the cost of a tank of gas!.
You are sooo fricken CHEAP !!!

When china starts selling cars for $6000 i bet you will all be the 1st in line.

Whether Gecko makes $29 drives in the USA or china , it doesn't matter because it wouldn't be worth while for competators to even waste time developing drives.

The US economy and the value of the $ is falling fast, but as long as you have your toy cnc for almost nothing , your happy.

[LeeWay]

The way I see it, I had a little cash to throw at a machine, but still had no clue what cnc was. I did not want to be out the couple grand it was going to take to build my first machine and not have anything to show for it.

If cheaper gecko drives had existed then, I might have went with them, but no telling for certain. There are many guys on this forum that are just learning cnc stuff and may not have a lot of dough to throw at the first machine. Thats what hobby cnc is all about. That first machine and getting your foot in the door. The $50,000 and higher machines ain't gonna be bothered by the existence of a new inexpensive drive. I doubt the whole world will come crashing down if Mariss makes this drive work out. If it does, then there are much bigger troubles about than I am aware of.

[asuratman]

Cheap drive that Mariss proposed will make us to do some more complicated things. For that price of gecko drive right now, it is good enough price for even beginner if you compare to professional drive such as fanuc, yasnac. It is better to make it more sophisticated so that not many works to do, I have no time to experiment and I think so most of us.

Aristo.

[MrWild]

WOW, for the cost of what I paid for lini-stepper kits (that are still half built), I coud be in a quality low power drive? Bring it on!

So, being a MORE POWER kind of guy, what sort of interlocks will be designed in to keep me from trying to push 5A through these if I added heat sinks? And better yet, how can I hack around them,? :-) A $30 drive I can hack for a couple more dollars into a 5A drive would have me tip toeing through the tulips.

I believe there is a project on the back burner looking for three of these.

[Mariss Freimanis]

routerman,

I'm astounded! On a couple of points actually:

1) You are concerned the Cheap Drive may hurt the Chinese economy because they may undercut imported drive prices?

2) You think our goal is to crush competition?

The Cheap Drive is a quick design exercise done to see what happens if newer, smaller components and new production technology is taken into account. The last time I did that was in 1998 and the result of the exercise was the G201. That was when 7A 80V microstep drives cost $250 to $500 a pop. I can assure you a little "love" came our way when the $99 G201 sold in enough quantity to appear on radar screens. I still remember one very interesting 3 AM phone call where someone expressed concerns similar to yours but put a little more pointedly.

All our products are R&Ded, designed, prototyped, tested, manufactured and supported right here in Sunny Southern California. Our lowliest employee makes $25 an hour. From time to time the Chinese and others have deemed our product designed good enough to pirate. I take that as a compliment.

My goal as a designer is to be as good as I can be at my chosen craft. It is to insure our product delivers what is promised, responsibly maintain and improve our existing products, develop new products as new ideas and better components appear and to continuously update my education. It is not my goal to "crush the competition" because I lack the arrogance or the time for such a pointless pursuit.

Being good at my job means I'm always asking myself "What if" questions. "What if an encoder was put on a step motor to close a PID feedback loop?" "What if the G320 was improved using a CPLD?" "What if a 4-quadrant pulse multiplier circuit was added to the G213V board?"

The "What if" question generating the Cheap Drive occurred while sitting in our hot-tub last Thursday evening, enjoying good conversation and a bottle of fine wine. This is California after all. Afterwards I ran some numbers, looked at some schematics from a new perspective and fired-up my CAD program to do a little creative doodling. I just wanted see what the implications of a 3A, 50V drive using the latest components are. This took until 3AM and the results were exciting.

Today, the Verilog code for the CPLD is written and tested, the schematic is drawn and the 4-layer board layout is about 1/3 done. The Cheap Drive will have 73 surface-mount components and will be 1.625" by 1.25" in size. The thing should be ready for prototype board fabrication by next Friday, about 7 days of work invested from idea to boards.

The Cheap Drive has a volume of 3/4 cubic inch, the G203V comes in at 3.5 cubic inches. That makes $29 a not unreasonable goal. Electronics prices out by weight or volume just like any other commodity.:-)

Mariss

[High Seas]

routerman,

My goal as a designer is to be as good as I can be at my chosen craft. It is to insure our product delivers what is promised, responsibly maintain and improve our existing products, develop new products as new ideas and better components appear and to continuously update my education. It is not my goal to "crush the competition" because I lack the arrogance or the time for such a pointless pursuit.

... AND ...
Being good at my job means I'm always asking myself "What if" questions. Mariss

WOW - If that was bannered on the Gecko website -sort of Mission/Vision etc - not to be trite - it would sure answer a lot of the why are you questions - up front!

But, you really don't need to justify the why - but clearly a lot of interest has been generated by the concept! The project would bring the costs of control for an entry level machine to nearly equal thirds - mini Lathe/mill 300+/-, GettoGecko + power supply and Mach3, ballpark $300, and some decent entry Cad/Cam software -
Get in for about a grand!

I watch with great interest.

:cheers: Jim

[Mariss Freimanis]

kreutz,

You have the right idea. Most people here know of Geckodrive only for the drives they use in CNC applications yet that segment of the market makes for less than 10% of our sales. Where does the other 90% go? Industrial OEM embedded applications and others. At the whimsical end of the spectrum, King Kong's (the recent remake) eyes, eyelids, eyebrows, mouth and facial movements were driven by our drives. At the serious end of the spectrum, our drives have been on the Space Shuttle twice, inside science package payloads.

We try to take very good care of the CNC market (product quality, price and support) because in return these good people allow us to perfect our products for real-world application environments in volumes large enough to generate sensible reliability statistics. It is a symbiotic relationship; CNC users get the latest stuff we have to offer, OEMs get provenly reliable drives.

Mariss