help required

[willheg]

hello people

looking at building a mini wood/plastic router/engraver but the problem i have is i have 4 stepper motors

3 Sanyo Denki unipolor but only know they are 1.3Ω which i have no idea on what it relates to and 1.8 deg/step

1 Kyushu Matsushi.ta rated at 6v, COIL 8Ω, deg/step 1.8

what i am wondering is what voltage i would be good enought to run these motors at and the best user built board to build that would not cost to much to build

anyway hope someone out there can help me
Cheers
William

[RotarySMP]

1.3Ω is the coil resistance. If you have one more peice of information, either rated vaoltage or rated current, you can determine what driver you need to run it.

Unipolar motors were designed for lower tech drivers. Most drivers available today are bipolar. You can drive a unipolar motor with a bipolar driver (either Biploar series, or bipolar half winding). Unipolar motors will have either 5 or six wires.

1.8/step means these are probably standard two phase steppers, and should run with any of the common stepper drives like Gecko, Xylotex etc.

That 6V 8Ω motor will be a pretty slow motor. Its speed torque curve will be a pretty steep downhill.

I went the super low cost route at the start and soon realised that it is false economy. Even a low cost three axis board will cost you over $100. Once you have the little mini wood/plastic router running, you will imediately be confronted by its limitations. If you jump straight to a Gecko G540, you have something that will also power teh second and third machines, rather than the low cost driver that ends up in a box at the bottom of the wardrobe

[willheg]

hi mark

thanks for the info, but i only found a sticker on the motor saying what i put on the net but what i may be able to do is take a photo or two and see if anyone can help that way,

i'm not worried to much if it is a slow machine at this stage, im just looking at building this machine to see if it works then i have bigger motors to build a bigger one but would just like to try everything before i jump into it and find it flops

so basicly just building a mini version of what i have designed to see if it works

anyway if anyone could help on how to find out any more info to work out which board i could build and what voltage to run it all i that would be great

Cheers
William

[dilbert0815]

thanks for the info, but i only found a sticker on the motor saying what i put on the net but what i may be able to do is take a photo or two and see if anyone can help that way,

If they are Nema23 (56mm mount) and a decent size (about the same length or larger) then they should be good for ~5..10W dissipation.

Using 1.3Ω they should be ok for 2 Amps, may be even 3 Amps. I have smaller motors on my mill.
You could test this as soon as you have a controller.
Just start with a moderate current and test the motor temperature after some minutes.
Increase or decrease the current setting to get as much current as the temperaure rise of the motors seem to allow. Stay below 60°C to be safe.

By the way steppers are controlled with constant current. Voltage does not matter there. Actually voltage should be as high as your controller survives.

As for DIY controller look for controller ICs.
TA8435, TC6560 are some common modern components for 1,5 to 3Amp range. The package is also DIY-friendly and the parts easily to be obtained.
Finished boards for 3 channels are found on eBay for as low as 50$ without power supply.
Chinese make and be aware of lousy documentation. Ok if you are familar with DIY electronics and can help yourself.
L297 may seem cheaper but are realy outdated. There are some DIY projects using it but I rather discurage you to start with these old parts today.