Is the Xylotex a Good Choice

[bill south]

I recently aquired an old D&M maching center (sherline) that has dated electronics and no information with it. I plan on stripping the thing and installing 3 axis stepper drivers. I want to use the existing motors and power supply. The PS has 7 amp fuses for the axis and measures 50 volts off the dc supply. I don't know what the motors are other than some information stamped on the insdie end cap of "union" MK2opkp adn s92c020-3. They are 4 wird. The numbers do not hit on google so dosen't mean anything.
I was going to order a xylotex board but it is rated at 35 volts. Guys, I work with servos and don't know a thing about steppers. Will the xylotex work with this application. I hate to spend a bunch of $$$ for this small machine. But if I can get it repaired, I'll sell it to someone what wants one that size.
Any help out there????
Bill

[ger21]

You can't use a 50V suplly with the Xylotex. But, you can get 24V supplies on Ebay for as low as $10-$20 that will work fine with it. Or just buy the power supply that Xylotex sells with it. Not sure about the motors. 4 wire motors will work, but without the ratings for them, hard to say how they'll perform.

[Torchhead]

Being older technlogy motors I would suspect them to need the higher voltage and maybe higher currents than the Xylotex can provide. The Xylotex setup is targeted to the smaller "table top" (although there have been larger tables built with it) applications. For larger motors/voltages you need to look toward the Gecko 2XX line of drives.

If you are more comfortable with servo's you could retrofit the motors with servo's and use the Gecko 3XX series drives. The loop is closed in the drive so the same step & dir software typically used in the stepper systems works with the servo configuration as well.