03-11-2008, 12:45 AM
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| | | Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: USA
Posts: 808
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I've had lots of experience with Keling. How do I explain....well they're pretty good, but I'll relate my experience. The price is good. When I first got my parts I wired everything up, which is not difficult, but very difficult if you've never done it before because his drawing are very confusing. Everything worked with 24V, i had the 3 axis package too, 425oz motors and 5056 drivers. I then bought a 48v power supply from keling and it blew one of my drives. Now realize that everything worked fine for 6 months and I had cut a sign about an hour before switching over so I know everything worked. It was idiot proof and I checked my wiring after it toasted my drive and it was correct, all that was switched over was the power supply I didn't disconnect anything else. I asked him on CNCzone if I could buy a new drive so I had it right away and then get a credit from him when I sent the new one in, because it was still under warranty, he said OK. Now mind you these drives are supposed to be protected against anything you can throw at them aside from cross polarity (switching positive and negative). When I got the new drive, stupid me, I hooked it up like before, I should have tried 1 drive not all 3, and it blew 2 drives. Boy was I pissed. If it was wired incorrectly it would have blown all 3 drives both times but it didn't, hell I hooked up old power supply and the remaining drive worked. I called keling, now this is the hard part English is not his native language so trying to explain thing to him is difficult and understanding him is even harder because his accent is so thick, but he is more than patient to talk you through it. Now he said I must have done something wrong, I know I didn't but I understand where he's coming from, but these drives are supposed to be protected against almost everything. He wanted to send the drives back to china for analysis to see if it was my fault or not, mind you they were still under warranty, I'm sorry but I'm not waiting 3 months for an answer or my drives. I convinced him to upgrade me to the 8087 drives, because he didn't have 5056 drives in stock. I had to pay for the upgrade. So I sent the drives back with the 48V power supply for him to take a look at and see if for some reason it was the power supply, which was keling too. In the mean time I ran through every possibility. I emailed Art who wrote Mach 3 and CNC4PC which is the breakout board Keling supplies about the probelm. Them both said emphatically that there was no way the breakout board or Mach 3 could blow the drives as the power supply is hooked up directly to the drives and all the other hook ups are just signals. So I hooked up the new drives and everything worked like it did before with the 24V power supply. BUT I noticed one VERY BIG thing...I was very concerned with the heat off the motors with the 5056 drives and queried cnczone for answers, they said as long as they don't hit 190 degrees F I'd be OK. During cutting my drives hit about 130 F. With the new drives I got a little fast speed 40 velocity instead of 61 now and the motors never get above 85-90 F, way cooler. And everything is the same, same enclosure, same power supply, same exact wiring, same settings. I have a feeling the 5057 are defective. Now the thing that pissed me off was I never got an answer from him about my power supply which he still has! I emailed him but I guess he's not answering my emails. There goes $85 down the drain.
So it's up to you. But if I had to do it again I'd go with gecko as they are US based, as far as I know located near Disneyland, and a much bigger company, so more recourse and tech support. As far as I know, every time I call, I get the same guy who owns it, I forget his name.
Let me clarify he's honest and his products are reasonably good and he'll help as much as he's able but when it comes to defect, repairs or tech support I think you'll be on your own. The plus for Gecko is a lot of people on here use them so there's tons of info.  |
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