8x4 router build. which stepper motors. .?

[ger21]

Sorry, never used Mach3 on a windows 7 PC.

[dangerousdave]

Maybe I should just go and buy a old pc tower with parellel port on motherboard and run xp then?

[BuckNaked31]

Take a look at the UC100 USB Motion Controller.

Sent from my LGMS769 using Tapatalk 2

[adam_m]

Cheers bud. Ill have to have a look for a better win7 compatable pci parallel port. Any recommendations? Or any will do?

Thanks for prompt reply

I am successfully using the following PCI card that I picked up from Amazon:

Rosewill Single Parallel (SPP/PS2/EPP/ECP) Universal Low-Profile PCI Card RC-302

Adam,

[MechanoMan]

Well you need to take into account the whole config. But for a 4x8 NEMA23 382 oz-in actually CAN do the job well.

In my experience with NEMA23, 48v power supply, and a Geckodrive G540, 2 steppers to move the X-axis (the whole gantry), with 381 oz-in steppers and CNCRouterPart's R&P drive, that does 600 IPM rapids solid (can go faster if you feel the need to and carefully adjust the pinion spring force, you can do 1000IPM if you want, but why??). That is geared down to 0.95" per stepper rotation, or 631 RPM.

AFAIK Geckodrive is the only one on the market that makes steppers perform consistently well at higher speeds. I could be wrong, I don't have experience with every product ever made. With inferior drives you'd have to work in a lower RPM range, then try to lower the gear ratio to get it to move fast, but that exceeds the torque of the motors, so you'd get bigger motors which are far more expensive, and a bigger drive- this gets out of hand quickly.

The KelingInc 381 oz-in 3.5A NEMA23 motors max out the G540's current capability. They are the "sweet spot" for component selection. It does not "stress" the G540 to do this, at most you might add a small low-speed PC fan to the back to cool it (heatsinking is not really necessary). The "higher torque" motors in NEMA23 will produce LESS torque at high speeds on a 48V system, and actually slower overall. You could go to NEMA34 but you'd have to change to a higher voltage power supply and another type of Geckodrive which will really cost $$$ and may not yield any practical benefit.

[bearwen]

Anyone who is reading this thread PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do yourself the favor and do the math all of the formulas are here on the zone or call the people at gecko they will help you out.
Motor size and power supplies very greatly based on your system and what you want to do. the best way to figure out the size of the motor is to build the system then test to see how much force it takes to move the gantry ( the fish scale test is great here) once you know how much force is needed to move the system around add the force that a router can handle (not more than 40lbs) then add at least 40% and that is the minumum torque you will want do this for all axis (z usually being a scew is totally different math) also just a general rule of thumb nema 23 motors are good to about 800RPM and nema 34 to 600RPM.

I have attached a spread sheet that i got at the mechmate forum for calculating torque and speed and other stuff for rack and pinion systems.

BIGGER is (usually not better) in the CNC world DO the Math!!!!!