xylotex or salemcontrols

[BIGFERB]

Woohoo, first thread.
has anyone tried the boards from salemcontrols.com? They seem similar to the xylotex boards, perhaps even easier to hook-up. Similar prices and everything, just wondering if these are any good, or should I just get the xylotex 3 axis board?

[d.miller]

I work for SalemControls.com and would be glad to answer any questions you have about our products. Phone and email info are on the web site www.salemcontrols.com.

Thanks!
Daniel Miller

[BIGFERB]

Ok, I have a question for you then....I have 3 680oz/in steppers from Dan Mauch rated at 2A. Do you think your boards will handle these motors? I will be running Master5. I was reading a thread earlier about someone with these motors, and they wanted to run them on a xylotex board. Xylotex suggested he get gecko drives? What do you suggest?

[ger21]

Are those motors rated 6.8V? If so, you might not get a lot of speed out of them running at 24V or30V. Gecko's would let you run 70V which would give you much better performance.

[d.miller]

Our boards at SalemControls.com will handle up to 2.5A, so your 2A motors would be fine.

We use external diodes to help dissipate the current that results from the fast switching in the driver. This lets you use the full 2.5A that the A3977 from Allegro is rated for.

Thanks!
Daniel

[BIGFERB]

This may be a bit of a rookie question, but can I hook up 1 power supply and split it over the 3 motor power supply inputs? I have one that is 12V and 5A, but I will only be jogging the z axis, not really 3-d stuff. So I'm hoping to get away with this supply....any thoughts?

[d.miller]

Yes, you can split the supply over the 3 motor inputs.

One suggestion is that you connect a separate power and ground wire from the connection on the supply to each of the three motor power inputs. This is sometimes called a "star" configuration and helps reduce the chances of the three motors introducing noise to each other's power.

Also, the voltage on our controllers is from 8V - 35V (see the schematic in the instruction sheet at http://www.salemcontrols.com/product...C1125-3-MS.pdf), so the 5V supply might not be high enough voltage to drive the logic on the board.

Thanks,
Daniel

[d.miller]

Sorry--read the "12V and 5A" as "12V and 5V" by accident. The 12V supply will be fine.

Daniel

[BIGFERB]

Sounds good, when I have the funds, I think I will try your board. I'll post a review here and let everyone know how it goes. Oh ya, Daniel, how long do you think it will be to ship to southwestern Ontario Canada?

[d.miller]

Most orders ship same or next day. We can do UPS which is 1-3 days or USPS (their Intl. Express is cheap and only 2-3 days to Canada).

Thanks!

[bbox]

To D. Miller:

Regarding salemcontrols, how do you handle limits and homing functions?

Thanks,
Bill Box

[d.miller]

Bill,

There are 5 input positions on the board. These connect to the 5 pins of the status port that are available through most parallel ports. Our board doesn't have a hardware limit stop, although if you want one for safety you could add one externally.

We have some free Windows software on our web site to help our customers evaluate the boards and perform simple movements. This software has a command queue where you can set up a movement, save it to a file, edit it, reload it, etc. The software also has a window where the status port pins (those 5 input pins on the board) are monitored every 100 ms or so, and their status is displayed.

Most of the CNC software packages seem to have a way to monitor certain pins of the parallel port and then take actions depending on their status. By configuring the software to look at the correct pins you can set up your limit switches.

As for homing functions, this is not handled by the board. Returning to a home position would have to be handled by the software, which seems to be the standard method.

Thanks!
Daniel