(Gecko Drivers) Would you use ...

[rdarlington]

Well, after my previous negative experience (being completely ignored) I decided to give Gecko another shot. Man am I happy I did. I pretty much standardized on designing around the G203V drivers and the GREX box. My first project was a two axis (one linear, one rotary) system for acoustic inspection of sections of well pipes. (8" diameter, 18" long, give or take). We move a deck back and forth inside the pipe that carries special air coupled ultrasound transducers and the pipe is rotated via the rollers it sits on. This lets us position, extremely accurately I might add, the transducers anywhere inside the pipe.

I posted some pictures I took of the electronics box in the middle of the design and assembly process. We're a small shop and kinda design some things on the fly. Here is the power supply and electronics:

http://www.nerdhouse.org/gallery/v/cnc/

As you can see, very simple. Off the shelf everything except the machined panels for the rack mount box (I have a cnc milling machine to do this work, but you can do it other ways).

The transformer is from Parts Express, the cap/rectifier board is from Ajax CNC. For the lines to the step motors, I'm using these nifty military style connectors made by amphenol that have a twist lock and are keyed so they go in only one way (holes are shown for these on the back).

Programming for this project took roughly 3 hours and was done in Visual Basic. Soooo easy.

The next project is a three axis inspection system that will have a library of a particular automotive part. We'll need to move the parts onto a test area for inspection, then back to its storage location. It'll be like a large tape backup library. I'm going with gecko all the way.

-Bob

[joecnc2006]

Very Clean work

[CarlosC]

For the lines to the step motors, I'm using these nifty military style connectors made by amphenol that have a twist lock and are keyed so they go in only one way (holes are shown for these on the back).

Do you have pictures of these connectors and/or part numbers? Where did you get them?

Thanks

[rdarlington]

Yes, I will list every part I used, price, and where I obtained the part. I'll even include the exact step motors I used. Give me a week or so to retrieve copies of all my invoices.

I'll also take updated pictures of the device. The only thing left to do on it is to add a 12 volt supply for the GREX. Currently I have wires sticking out through a slot in the rack mount chassis hooked to an external supply. I didn't like the idea of plugging the unit into the wall, and then running a separate 12v supply to it. I still need to figure this one out, and I'm leaning toward using the original supply with spade connectors and heat shrink tubing over the prongs that go to the outlet.