unregulated power any good?

[willheg]

hello people

what i am looking for answers for is i have found an unregulated power supply at http://www.kelinginc.net/SwitchingPowerSupply.html, model KL-5413 which i hope would run my 4 stepper motors i have sitting here that i brought from http://motionking.com/Products/Hybri...8%20degree)%20 model 23HS2410.

what i'm wanting to know if anyone can help is what is better, unregulated or regulated?? and will i need CAPS/not or what else would need to be done to make this safe and not burn out the motors/drivers which i'm yet to order, looking at 4 gecko 203v models but the price is kinda putting me off at the moment

also wondering if the power supply i have looked at would be good for the 4 motors i have sitting here or if anyone can recomend anywhere else to get a power supply good enought to run the motors to there max without stuffing them

anyway any help with what i have asked would be thanked

[MyCattMaxx]

When it comes to motors, An unregulated supply will do just fine as long as the unloaded voltage is not too high for your drivers. You also need the current (amps) draw to be below what the power supply is capable of.

With out going into a long soon to be off topic thread an unregulated, poorly filtered supply only feeds the steppers and not the logic circuits, it should do you just fine.

Keling would not sell it to you if it wasn't up to the job.

[willheg]

Thanks for that, if i was to regulate it how would i do that and would it make any change to the voltage?? or anything, cause i asked once before about motor voltage and stuff and everyone said witht the 4 motors i would need, off the top of my head, around 62vdc and 12 amps or so.

but to help out i'm looking at a xyza machine, most of the time just running xyz so i'm picking that the items i am looking at will do the trick but never know where to post to get the best answers or not get told off.

and the other thing is is would i need a break out board or not?? i'm looking at running EMC2 and maybe putting a 2nd printer port in for extra inputs so i get a more detailed message if i hit a limit or something, but yeah will have to do some more looking round, the options are endless.

anyway i have a couple of other things to sort out first with the money i have then i may buy the gecko 203v (or is there a cheaper driver witht the same ratings and safteys that anyone knows of?) and power supply so i can start playing there and get me into gear to build this dam thing, but the problem i have is it costs so much to get it sent to new zealand but oh well guess that is just part of the fun

anyway if anyone else can help that would be great

[H500]

The supply will do the job, although 54v is slightly low. Something closer to 70v would be ideal if you're using the gecko 203v, in order to get the most power out of your motors. You won't need additional capacitors.

I prefer unregulated supplies since they are simpler and more rugged.

[willheg]

thanks for the info, but i worked out or was told on here somewhere that the motors i have are only good to 62v but yeah everyone has there own opitions i guess.

anyway i was wondering if running my motors at the 70ish volts would matter

if i member rightly, the supplyer said something like 24-80v is fine but looking at the sites and the gecko one with there formula 62v is the max i should run but yeah hope i can get to the bottom of this with the suggestions everyone has

anyway thanks again to any help anyone has

[H500]

Geckodrive has published a set of guidelines. In it is a recommendation for the max voltage to use for a given motor. Keep in mind that it's a rule of the thumb, not an absolute.

In general, the higher the voltage, the faster your speed. But heat loss in the motor also increase with voltage. In other words it will get hotter.

I plan to run my system at the highest voltage. If motor heating is excessive, I can unwind a few turns from the transformer to reduce the voltage.