so many questions not enough time.lol

[chevblue2]

Hi Guys!
ok a newbie here,but my mill is done and running.
i am running stepper3 board and 125oz unipolar steppers(12v 1.2a) with a 12v power supply(micronta)
I have read alot of posts with Guys complaining about low ipm with kcam which is my problem also.
Any advice on squeezing more out of this setup?
Another cam program maybe?
I have simple cnc so i like the windows enviroment.
Thanks in advance!!

[jeffs555]

A large part of your problem is probably the very low voltage of your power supply and the high voltage of your motors. You generally want your supply voltage to be 10-20 times the voltage rating of the motors. Speed is pretty much directly proportional to supply voltage. It would help to know exactly what motors and drive you are using. I don't think any software changes would help.

PS depending on your drives, you may need external power resistors to run higher supply voltage.

[chevblue2]

Thanks for the reply Jeffs555
My stepper drive is a stepper3 3axis 3amp heres web page
http://stepper3.com/shop/product_inf...products_id/51
and my motors are type 57BYG11207 and were suppost to be 12v 1.5amp
but i cant find much on them.
In my manual it did say more volts but i admit i was scared to death to fry something...lol
What volt and amp power supply do you advise?
I had no problem with the build but with the electronics im struggling.
Thank You again!

[chevblue2]

Thanks for the reply!
My stepper drive is a stepper3 3axis 3amp board and my motors(3)
are 12v 1.5a
What volt and amp supply do you advise?
I had no problem with the build on this mill but with the electronics im struggling.
Thanks!

[jeffs555]

I hate to say this, but I think you are going to continue to struggle with those parts.

The main problem you have is that your motors are rated at 12 volts. For good speed, you want motors rated under 5 volts and preferably closer to 2 volts. Maximum speed is directly proportional to supply voltage, ie double the supply voltage and you double the maximum speed. For good speed you generally want a supply voltage 10 to 20 times the voltage rating of the motor. With a 2 volt motor, that would be 20 to 40 volts. With a 12 volt motor to get equivalent speed would require a 120 to 240 volt supply and that is way too high for most drivers.

The other problem is that when you increase the supply voltage, the current also tries to increase. To use a higher supply voltage than the rating on your motor, you need something to limit the current to keep the motor from burning up. Most modern drives use something called chopping to limit the current, and they will have some way to adjust the current. Can't tell for sure since they don't even list any specs on the web, but your drives don't appear to have this. You could buy power resistors, which was the old way to limit current and there are people still using them.

You could use a 24v or 36v supply and double or triple your maximum speed, but unless your drives have some way to adjust the current you will need to buy and wire in some power resistors which would have to be calculated for your motors and for the supply voltage you end up using.

[pminmo]

here are a couple of reads for improving performance: http://pminmo.com/PMinMOwiki/index.p...le=Performance

http://www.geckodrive.com/photos/Step_motor_basics.pdf

[chevblue2]

Thanks alot for settin me straight guys!
really appriciate the info!
Im going to use this setup for a little longer then get some 2-5v motors and supply to match(10-20 times v)
Any web sites you can advise on learning canned cycles?
would like to learn more programming instead of using my conversational program,it is nice but im sure it wont cover all bases.
Thanks again for the help,its nice to have guys like ya'll that will reply!!