Replacement steppers for Flashcut?

[MoparJon]

I have a Torchmate plasma gantry which uses Flashcut's software, motor controller and steppers. My setup currently has a pair of Flashcut's MP-2301 steppers, and a 5000-079-111005 driver box. The configuration sheet that came with the box says that each axis is configured with a drive model of 2035, phase current of 1.625A, step resolution of 400 and 50% idle current. According to the specifications on Flashcut's web site, it would appear that my driver box is a full or half step mode, chopper type drive, 2 amp max current, 36 VDC.

My machine currently uses a pair of Flashcut's MP-2301 steppers which are 135 oz NEMA-23. One of them bit the dust, so I am looking at replacing it, or possibly upgrading to a pair of MP-2302 steppers which are also NEMA-23 but 264 oz. According to Flashcut's web site, it looks like it is acceptable to use the 264 oz motors with the 2 amp driver. Since all of this stuff originally came from Torchmate, I checked with them and they want just over $250 per motor. That seemed awfully high to me so I've started looking around to see what alternatives I might have. I've got an e-mail into Flashcut for a quote for motors from them, but while I am waiting, started to look other places. I see motors which seem to look the same at Keling, Inc for $30-40 which is sure nice as far as cost goes, but I'm having difficulty trying to determine whether or not they will work with this setup.

Unfortunately, Flashcut doesn't seem to list any specs on their web site (that I could find) for their motors beyond basic dimensions and holding torque. They also helpfully removed the label, so I don't even know who the original manufacturer is. The motors that I have are 8 wire, but only 4 wires actually make it to the connector, those appear to be the A, B pairs, the other wires are soldered together inside the pigtail. (There is a red and black pair that go to the connector, an orange and yellow pair also go to the connector. A white wire and a tan wire come out of the motor, and are soldered together in the pigtail, and a green and a blue wire come out of the motor and are soldered together in the pigtail. None of the last 4 wires that I mentioned actually make it to the connector.) I am guessing that means this is wired as bipolar, but I'm not sure if its parallel or serial. I also don't have any specs as far as amperage or voltage, so even if I had a better understanding of what to do with that info, I still probably wouldn't be able to determine if one of the $40 steppers from Keling would work for me.

Like I mentioned, I'm waiting to hear from Flashcut what they charge for the steppers; if it is reasonable I will just avoid the hassle and purchase directly from them, but if not, I'd like to figure out what else will work. Trouble is, I don't want to fry anything! Well, damaging a $40 stepper motor wouldn't be such a big deal, but I certainly don't want to hurt the Flashcut electronics which are considerably more expensive!

I knew almost nothing about stepper motors until a few hours ago when I started researching this stuff, but I still have a long way to go. Do I have enough info above to be able to determine whether one of the Keling steppers will work on my setup? I was thinking something along the lines of the KL23H276-30-4A which is a 4 wire, 2 phase (bipolar?) with a rated current of 3A might work? Or possibly the KL23H276-30-8A which is an 8 wire (4 phase) which I would wire as bipolar (though I'm not sure if it should be done in Parallell - 4.2A or Serial - 2.1A).

Thanks for reading this far. If anyone has any info or advice they could provide, I'd be most grateful!

Many thanks!

-Jon-

[MoparJon]

Been doing some more research, and have gotten much further. I heard back from Flashcut, they wouldn't even quote me a price on their motors, they said I needed to buy them from Torchmate, which I thought was interesting considering that one of Torchmate's marketing points is that they do not use proprietary items; everything is "off the shelf" and available elsewhere. Oh well, I'm not about to beg anybody to take my money!

Digging further into the Flashcut driver box, I have discovered that they don't make their own stepper motor drivers either, so even if I had gotten a reply from Flashcut, I'd still be dealing with a middleman. I don't know if all CNC controls are this way, but I have been amazed by the level of repackaging - there seems to be just a few people who actually make the controls and such, other people buy from them and repackage, the third level buys from them and repackages, and so on. Not that this is a bad thing; specialization is great, and I'm sure we get better products since every company doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. Its just sort've annoying that each repackager seems to try and keep everything proprietary, and gives the impression that they are the manufacturer. I can't really fault Torchmate for that so much, its no secret that they use Flashcut's stuff, but when I opened up Flashcut's driver box, I found Applied Motion Products' 2035 stepper drivers, and someone had actually painted over Applied Motion's name on the printed circuit board. I can only assume that was Flashcut's doing.

So anyway, my research has allowed me to leapfrog from Torchmate to Flashcut and finally to Applied Motion, which appears to be the end of the line. Fortunately, Applied Motion has manuals and datasheets on their website (unlike the repackagers) which has really helped a lot. I think I've learned enough to ask my original question in a more coherent, less rambling way, so I'll start another thread to do that.


-Jon-