question about motors and travel

[james12s]

ok i have a ?

does the motor have to move to table a cetain amount per step or is that set in a program and mass of components is all that requlates gearing


thanks

james

[afmcorp]

stepper motors are as they sound. so many steps per in. in my older cnc4 centroid it takes 16,000 steps to move x or y 1 inch.
tks
craig

[james12s]

yeah but does it have to be a specific value or do you enter the value into the software

[hoss2006]

james,
you tell your controller program ( i.e. Mach 3)
how many steps it takes your motor to move the axis 1 inch (or mm for you uk guys)
So that when the gcode says X 1.0, the controller knows how many steps it needs to go to get 1.0 travel.
For example:
I have a 200 steps per rev motor and .200 pitch ballscrew.
1.0 / .200 = 5 revs of the ballscrew per inch of travel.
5 x 200 = 1000 steps for 1.0 inch of travel.
In Mach 3 /config/motor tuning, set the 'steps per' to 1000.
hope this helps