This is incredible. You just figured all this out for me for the sheer hell of it? What can I say? Have a beer on me!
I like the sound of this 'ere 'microstepping'. Does this magically allow you to achieve less than the standard 360/200 deg/step movement on a stepper motor? (is it always 200 steps per circle in a stepper motor?)
I'm going to digest this, figure out my gantry design, and do a little analysis on the design.
I'm starting to settle on a table base made from a rectangle of 100x50x5mm mild steel box, welded together, and then I'm hoping to get a local machine shop to skim the top (depending on how accurately it ends up plane after welding) to get a true(ish) plane surface to bolt my THK X axis rails to.
I think I may have found a source of a lead screw that may do the Y axis; we have a scrap breast imaging machine at work, with a couple of lead screws in it for lifting the breasts up and down. Or is it the imaging head? Whatever. Anyhow, it looks like a good size, decent quality long screw (fnar fnar), but I suspect it wouldn't be a high accuracy class. Anyway, I'll check it out and see.
Thanks again for your research!
Cheers,
Tony  |