Keling 8056D Rocks!

[Cheeta]

Bob,
The analog drivers will work fine but depending on the motor inductace and filtering available in the driver, you can get resonance at lower speeds. Gecko has done a great job with their filtering and design but they make use of two items that I believe to be a weak spot. I am an engineer and I recently destroyed a Gecko by turning the trimpot too far. I have used those for years. My concern is several fold. If I have acustomer who has to change a motor or driver and they have to tune it, what is to stop them from doing the same. Which brings me to the other weak point. My machines can use cables up to 20 feet long and I use 18ga Igus Chainflex. It is very difficult to put a DB9 on much more than a 20 ga wire so then you have a point at which the impedance can be greater and you have potentil power loss there. Then there is the resistor termination. Most people who buy a CNC machine like to tinker. If they swap out a motor, they might not know about the resistor or if they do, they choose one with 20% tolerance and burn the Gecko up. By no means am I bashing the Gecko. I still put it on some machines depending on the need. They are a great 4 axis unit. I sell an aluminum cutter which is only 4x4 with an open gantry and dual screws. Gecko works perfect for that. The Keling digital is more conducive to changes that and end user might want to make to their machine. For you, a Gecko would be great as you know your machine and will be the only one to mess with it. For me...it is the unknown. I have to try and predict end use and the Keling seems to be better at that sort of thing. The tuning is automatic and current settings are a little easier for the DIY crowd.

Hope that makes sense.

Cheeta

[Cheeta]

FannBlade,
I think for some reason, I couldnt find the software. It is pretty intriguing. Were you able to download it? I did read about it and yes, you need to tune them one at a time. It tells you a lot about the performance of the motor. How do you like the driver? If you try the ProTuner, let me know how it works. I was actually toying with the idea of bringing that connection to the outside of my enclosures so I can tune a customer's setup with having to open the box...or better yet give them an executable the will do it for them on their PC.

Cheeta

[FannBlade]

No I haven't tried them yet. Long way from that they are still in the box. Have to finish new shop then start install.
I found the instructions pretty interesting...so you let me know first.

[Cheeta]

heh, sounds good! Hope you are up and running soon.

[bobmagnuson]

Cheeta... Couple more questions...

Do you have the part number for the IGUS Chainflex you use?

What steppers do you use for your builds? Break out board?

Thanks again...

Bob

[Cheeta]

Bob,
The cable is CF140-07-04. Contact Nick Reimer. He is the Igus rep here in the cities for electrical...nreimer@igus.com. They also have a nice cable chain that I use. Not sure what your application is but Nick or Ian Griffan can help you select a chain if you are interested.

I have taken a liking to Keling's low inductance motors (2.8mH) 370 oz-in They are pretty well priced and have performed well for me.(KL23H2100-35-4B
) I used to import my own from China but I cant do the volume to get pricing and John sells these pretty cheap.

I also use the C10 BB(simple and robust), you can get it at Keling as well or CNC4PC.com. Keling sells a nice little 5V supply you can hide in the enclosure for only $10.
As a side note...I have Mach3 running on a little Acer netbook with W7 driving the USB smoothstepper. So far it works very well. I even run SheetCAM and ACAD on that little thing and carry it to the shop to run CNC...if I can pry it from my daughter's hands

Cheeta

[Cheeta]

Doh!! its Nick Riemer nriemer@igus.com