Another motor question

[shedwards]

Hi, newbe here. I am building a 6'x3.5' router table from steel. The table & gantry are built. Everything rolls well, but nothing is perfect. I plan to use 1/2 - 10 Acme threads for the drives & have my motors. They are 400 ozin, NEMA 23 frame "green monsters" from Probotix. Since I don't have a feel for the amount of power these are capable of without overloading them, here is my question. I plan to use one lead screw along each side of the gantry on the X axis. Mainly this is to reduce or eliminate any lead or lag from one side to the other as it travels down the bed. Am I better off connecting the 2 lead screws with a chain & driving them with one motor OR using one motor & driver on each screw & having them programmed together? Will one of these motors power the extra friction of 2 screws and a chain? The one motor approach seems better if the motor can handle it. Thank you for your help.

[ger21]

The preferred approach is two separate motors and drives, slaved in software.

However, you may have quite a few problems.

What drives are you using?
Unless you use a Gecko G201 or G203 at around 70V, you won't get a lot of speed out of those motors. Coupled with 1/2-10 acme, that means you won't get much speed out of your machine.
In addition, the screws will whip badly at that length, which may limit you're speed even more.

You're best bet for a 6' drive system is rack and pinion.

Will the motors have enough power? Depends on the power supply, drives, and how fast you want to go, in addition to the drive system choice.

[shedwards]

Thank you. I got the drives and motors together as a kit. The drives are Probostep VX Unipolar with a 24 volt, 6.5 amp power supply. At this point, speed is not critical. I plan to use it mostly to cut out parts for model airplanes. Once I get it working and my learning curve flattens a little, I'll probably upgrade. I would also like to be able to do 3D. Again, another learning curve.