Originally Posted by lesnesman I've got one thing straight now. The drive is what actually sends power to the motors. The controller is the pc running emc. I will try to do the bdi thing again. I do have a lousy connection at work where I was attempting to download the bdi. Afterwards I checked the mdsum and it was biffed. So that was probably part of the blue screen deal. I have a pretty reliable connection at home (dsl) but I don't have a burner in the pc currently. |
Well there is a good way to look at this. At home I have a dial up connection and was able to download bdi-4.23 over a period of a couple of days. Not bad but before I got it burned to disk what should happen but bdi-4,24, comes out. That fixes a couple of issues so I just finished downloading 4.24. Now I have to go out and buy some blank CD's.
By the way a CD burner is a good investment and you can get by with a dirt cheap one.
I would like to get emc working though. I have always thought that the concept of linux was great but it just never really jived once I loadeed and tried it. I've tried to use redhat linux a bunch of times over the past 5 years. |
Linux is very interesting and at this point I've given up on MS software on my machines. It does have a leanring curve but the college I went to introduced me to UNIX on sun systems like 15 years ago, so I'm biased.
If you find making the jump difficult you can look at EMC/Linux as a machine specific thing.
One thing that might make useing emc a little bit laborious will be making the models and g code on the windows side then bringing it into emc. Anyone familiar with doing that?? Do you need to restart the operating systems everytime you need to make a change to your model, generate the code, back out of windows, boot linux and somehow bring it into emc??
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What one does is to set up a partition that is shared across both operating systems. Store your data there. You may get lucky though and find that you can run some of your software on Linux under WINE. Wine emulates (sort of) a Windows environment. The problem is results are highly mixed.
So it seems like the gecko drives are a good bet. How much will it cost to have gecko drives for all 3 axis if I'm using steppers at a modest torque for what I'm doing??
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As far as I know there is only one size Gecko drive and you have to configure it to the current that the motor demands. One thing to point out here is that the drives require a DC power supply which may be an issue. So it is not just a matter of buying the drives, you also need a properly sized powersupply.
As for cost contact Gecko and see what they will quote you.
I am sort of turned off on the ball screw configuration. Belts sound like a good way since it would be more impervious to dust and chips. Where do I read more about this type of a system? Are there companies that sell kits for doing this?
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I think it would be a mistake to call belts imperious to dust and chips. Just about all motion producing hardware will have trouble with that. Some may argue this but my point is that it is easier to guard and maintain a belt drivne system in a dust environment than it is a ball screw. Ballscrews may start out looking good but you will have gunk build up in them and the required lubrication just supplies a tacky surface for said gunk to attrack to. Note that it is likely that some ball screws are better that others with this respect and some provide excellent provisions for lubrication. Further ball screws can end up being very expensive relative to the rest of the machine.
There are not absolutes here either. At work (a very clean environment) we have a number of robots that use a combination of belts and lead screws to move hardware very vast. That sort of motion is not really appropriate for machining though. Do realize that belts have there own design requirements, you really can't ignore the engineering.
One thing I saw at a recent model engineering show is the use of chain on an axis. Something to consider but I'm not sure you would get the results you want. Others may want to comment on this technology if they have used it. One nice thing about chains is that they do hold up in harsh environments.
That for all your help. I will continue to read.
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You will find all sorts of ideas in thes forums. Further there is much to be learned on the net. You may find that ballscrews may end up being the only thing that you are comfortable with due to the precision you want. Just realize that the ball screws are only as good as the surrounding hardware.
Dave