Pulse Motor for Auto Feed?

[EvilSmirk]

I'm looking at switching from using the gear set to a pulse motor for turning the lead screw for a really fine finishing cut.

I've turned and attached an extension to the lead screw past the pillow block and have mounted a piece of 1/4" plexi to the end of my bed because I was using the Ultra-Fine Power Feed mod that Varmint Al posted on his website some time ago. But I've been having issues with the cheaply built animation gearmotors from MicroMark, their shipping costs don't help either.

Any way, I have a similar size pulse motor laying around and wanted to look into using that instead of the animation gearmotor. Can I wire up a pulse motor to a variable power supply and use the voltage/current to adjust the speed of the motor?

If so, can anybody tell me which of the million or so wires coming out of the pulse motor I need to work with to make this work?

I know testing will need to be done to determine torque, speed, etc. Just was thinking about it last night a little bit and wanted to see what the experts thought.

[TroyO]

I don't know the details of stepper motors, I haven't done anything with them. (Yet)

But, you might find this interesting....

http://www.autoartisans.com/ELS/

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/E-LeadScrew/messages

The E-Leadscrew project is (As I understand it) a build-it-yourself (like the Shumatech DRO) circuit board that you use to control a stepper motor for your leadscrew. It lets you automate threading and other tasks... you set the TPI and length and it controlls the leadscrew based on spindle RPM. It also can do smoothing cuts, etc. No changing gears, as it's all controlled by the ELS.

Very cool idea...