Newbie- how do i choose a good driver??

[yezard]

i am building a cnc machine and am thinking of purchasing some 3.1nm stepper motors but have no idea what a good driver is, i have heard the gecko drives are good but they seem to be out of my budget
the data sheet for my motor can be found here http://www.cnc4you.co.uk/resources/60BYGH301B.PDF
thanks in advance

[TOTALLYRC]

Increase your budget and go Gecko.

My two cents

Mike

[James Newton]

Gecko's would be best. Those motors are just on the upper edge of what a Linistepper can manage... you might try driving them with a Linistepper at 2 amps (with the current tuning option) or even at 3 if you are /really/ careful to keep the drivers cool (e.g. use a CPU fan). They will cost less than half the price. The SLAm driver would do fine, but it is a chopper so you will need to watch out for mid band resonance and so on which is always an issue with the chopper type drivers. e.g. add mechanical dampers.

What ever you do, DO NOT get sucked into those cheap Chinese drivers on ebay, etc... google around about them and read all the problems other people have had before you make a decision.

[yezard]

thanks for the info, i am intrigued about the linistepper and slam drivers, i am a complete noob with this cnc driver stuff and have been reading around this forum for a while now i have a 3 axis machine so i am presuming i would need 3 drivers and some breakout board to connect them?? .
if i were to go with the gecko drives what drivers do you guys recomend?

[James Newton]

Yes, you need a driver per axis, and some way of connecting each driver back to the PC. A breakout board is the easiest way to do that, although you can accomplish pretty much the same thing by cutting off and ohming out the end of a good quality parallel printer cable. The basic directions for connecting the Linistepper (or any PMinMO compatible driver) are at:
LiniStepper, lini, stepper, linear, 6th microstep, linear microstepping stepper motor driver, constant current linear driver, circuit Linistepper boards, LiniStepper kit, hobby stepper, robot stepper driver kit, CNC stepper driver kit

And this FAQ answer lists some common ways that drivers are connected to a parallel port
Slowing 69.16.243.61&c=1&t=40520.4834965278

We sell a little break out board and cable sets that vastly simplify all that. This link will get you everything you need, other than the power supply.

http://www.ecomorder.com/techref/eco...014=1&416015=3

As to the geckos, I'm no expert on their drives, so I'll let someone else speak to that.

[yezard]

thanks james i really appreciate your input, im based in the uk so i think if i purchase overseas i will be faced with excess shipping costs and excess taxes which will really bump up the finial price it also one of the reason why i am not so keen on buying the geckos,
so i was wondering does anyone know of any good drivers that are sold in the uk??

[James Newton]

Everything you need to make the Linistepper is sold in the uk. You can buy the materials to make the PCB, program the PIC and everything else locally.

If you don't fancy making boards, you can purchase a set of 3 PCBs for $35 USD plus $15 priority mail shipping from us and then buy (or scrounge) everything else locally.
http://www.ecomorder.com/techref/eco...6026&q=1&s2l=1

If you don't want to program PIC's you can buy them pre-programmed with the boards for $5.95 each and no extra postage.
http://www.ecomorder.com/techref/eco...416060=3&s2l=1

That's the beauty of open source hardware! We aren't stopping you.