Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement


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    Default Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Hey guys, we are having our customer appreciation sale starting on Wednesday, November 21 through Monday, November 26. Just use the coupon code THANKS10 at checkout and get 10% off of all orders and free ground shipping.

    We also have some pretty big announcements on new products, and are introducing our Raptor line of motor controls. The Raptor line is the spiritual successor to the Vampire drive, the G203V, but includes four different products to start with. The key features of the Raptor line are:

    - Whisper quiet motor control at low speeds. I will post a video of how quiet they are, but there is no noise from the motor during low speed movement, and extremely minimized noise at higher speeds.
    - Cool running motors. As of our latest measurements we are seeing a 50% reduction in motor heating driven at the same speed and power settings.
    - Cool running drives. The drives in the Raptor series feature new motor control algorithms and components that leave the drive nearly incapable of overheating.
    - Smoother motion and higher torque. Our new control algorithms eliminate the need for an adjustment trimpot and automatically compensate for motor resonance at all speeds. A higher torque output means you will get more from your motors at the top end, essentially stretching your speed-torque curve laterally.
    - Motor matching. A new method of using nonvolatile flash memory for the resonance compensation allows us to map out specific motor waveforms. If you are an OEM (or a reseller with a packaged kit that includes motors) you can match a motors waveform to allow the Raptor drives to perfectly compensate for its distortions and nonlinearity.
    - Fourteen selectable resolutions. Choose from half step all the way to 256 microstep, with perfect microstepping capabilities.


    Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement-raptorlogofinal-jpg

    The first up in this new line is the GR214V and the GR204V. These are functionally identical drives with different footprints; the GR214V is a form, fit and function replacement for the IMS IM483 and IM805 motor controls while the GR204V is held to no physical constraints and is much smaller. The GR204V has been our test bed for all of our new products and is already a mature product, having gone through a number of revisions during the design process. Its core will be dropped into the GR214V to run a motor exactly as smoothly and cool as the GR204V.

    Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement-raptor-family-jpg

    After those two drives are released we have a huge new release: The GR570 featuring the SmoothStepper. We have partnered with Warp9 to integrate the Ethernet SmoothStepper right into the new GR570, which is our follow-up to the enormous success of the G540. It will have all of the great new design elements of the Raptor line noted above. Some of the more exciting new features are:

    - Our new GR252 motor control for each axis. This is the successor to our G250X and G251X and forms the heart of the GR570.

    Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement-gr252-plugged-jpg

    - 50VDC and 7A rated per channel. You can immediately double the power of your machine and run up to NEMA 42 motors.
    - Dual power supply inputs. There are two power supply inputs, meaning you can split your voltage and run smaller motors and larger motors without having to sacrifice power. Half of the drive can run at 12VDC (our new minimum voltage, allowing for single batteries to be used to power it) and the other half can run at 50VDC.
    - Expandable up to 6 axes. The GR570 will be customizable, and starts as a two-axis drive. Additional axes can be added as needed, either at the time of purchase or later on when upgrading your machine. Have a five axis machine but want to add an automatic tool changer? Just get a GR252 and plug it in.
    - Native Ethernet SmoothStepper integration. The ESS will plug directly into the motherboard and eliminate the need for extra wiring. All ESS boards in the field will be supported so upgrading your machine is as simple as plugging it in to the GR570.
    - 15 bi-directional inputs and outputs. We have new I/O options on the GR570 that allow you to run either an input or an output to it. All you have to do is set it in your software and the GR570 will do the rest.
    - 6 dedicated high speed inputs. Home switches require extremely fast inputs and we have put in 6 dedicated inputs meant for home switches.
    - VFD OUT, just like the G540.
    - Self-test for each axis. Each drive can be individually tested by just pushing a button. If you get motor motion you know that the drive is good, making in-the-field troubleshooting even easier.
    - An RGB LED for each axis, conveying status information. A blue LED means everything is all good, a red (or other undecided color) lets you know what kind of FAULT condition you are in.
    - Extremely rugged protection all over. Every single pin on the GR570 is protected, from power to signal.

    Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement-gr570-closeup-jpg

    Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement-gr570ess-closeup-jpg

    All of this is shaping up to be released very soon. We are hoping to begin rolling out our initial releases early next year. Beta testing will take place before that and we plan on doing an open beta, allowing for as many applications as possible to be tested. All of the products are based around the already finished GR204V so we do not anticipate any issues, but that is what beta testing is for!

    After we have the Raptor line out and completed we are going to be moving to phase two, which is upgrading the GR214V chassis to accept encoder input. We have provisions for encoder input on the upcoming revision and are going to close the loop for steppers and introduce an option to run brushless DC servo motors. This should all be done on the same drive with no added cost, meaning you can run open loop stepper motors (how it currently is), a closed loop stepper, or a brushless DC motor control. The timeframe on this is slightly more nebulous but we are hoping to have it released toward the end of 2019.

    Alright, this post is getting long enough. Because the GR570 is still in the design phase, albeit the end of it, we are looking for suggestions on what to include or features you wish you had on the G540. When we asked this question ten years ago we were told that a VFD output would be great, and that is why we added it. Thanks for reading if you made it this far in the post!

    Similar Threads:
    Last edited by CoAMarcus; 11-14-2018 at 07:08 PM. Reason: Layout.
    Marcus Freimanis
    www.geckodrive.com


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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    - 50VDC and 7A rated per channel. You can immediately double the power of your machine and run up to NEMA 42 motors.
    Your drive have 50 VDC and 7A rated per chanel, my NEMA 34 need 60 VDC min to run properly. How do we drive 60 VDC motor with 50 VDC driver properly.



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    In that case it sounds like the GR570 would not have the voltage you need, so the GR204V would likely be the best bet for you. There is a bit of a misnomer with steppers and the inductance formula (32 times the square root of inductance), where the calculated voltage is the best voltage to run it at; that voltage is the maximum voltage for that motor, so anything below it will run without overheating or throwing it out of phase. You can likely run your motors at 50VDC without issue, making the GR570 an option for you. Do you know the inductance rating of your motors so I can see what they work out to?

    Marcus Freimanis
    www.geckodrive.com


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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    My motor is stepper motor wantai 12 Nm 8.4 mH.



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    I have no experience with your products but it sounds impressive



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    I have G540 to run nema 23 425 oz in stepper motor on cnc router. It is good, I have for hobby used, just to cut wood mostly. I have never run G540 with nema 34 stepper motor, I thought it was not good. And I have G320X with 1200 oz in on milling machine.



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    So for your NEMA 34 you have a maximum voltage of 92VDC that can go through it before it no longer has a linear relationship with power and heating. You can run those motors at 50VDC without issue and would likely not notice much of a difference between that and 60VDC. A stepper motor really shines at low speed where it outputs significantly more torque than other motor types, namely BLDC and DC servo motors. The GR570 would most likely work very well with those NEMA 34 motors; as with all of our products, it will have our 30-day no-questions-asked return policy. If you don't like how it performs you can send it back here for a full refund, functionally allowing you to try before you buy.

    I am extremely impressed with the performance of all of these drives and I really think this is the biggest performance improvement we have ever made on a product line. I will try to shoot a quick video today so you can see how quietly it runs stepper motors.

    Also we are looking for recommendations on what you would like to see as a feature on the drive. We have tried to think of everything, but we are not machinists and there are surely things that would make your life easier that we have not considered.

    Marcus Freimanis
    www.geckodrive.com


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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Make video that drive GR570 drive big motor NEMA 34 12 oz in



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Does the G570 work without the ESS?

    Gerry

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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Quote Originally Posted by ger21 View Post
    Does the G570 work without the ESS?
    It would be nice if it works with the UC300ETH?



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Quote Originally Posted by CoAMarcus View Post
    So for your NEMA 34 you have a maximum voltage of 92VDC that can go through it before it no longer has a linear relationship with power and heating. You can run those motors at 50VDC without issue and would likely not notice much of a difference between that and 60VDC. A stepper motor really shines at low speed where it outputs significantly more torque than other motor types, namely BLDC and DC servo motors. The GR570 would most likely work very well with those NEMA 34 motors; as with all of our products, it will have our 30-day no-questions-asked return policy. If you don't like how it performs you can send it back here for a full refund, functionally allowing you to try before you buy.

    I am extremely impressed with the performance of all of these drives and I really think this is the biggest performance improvement we have ever made on a product line. I will try to shoot a quick video today so you can see how quietly it runs stepper motors.

    Also we are looking for recommendations on what you would like to see as a feature on the drive. We have tried to think of everything, but we are not machinists and there are surely things that would make your life easier that we have not considered.
    Hi Macus,
    It looks great. Especially the ESS integration. Presumably the two 2-pin pluggable connectors on the end of the motherboard are for the split power supply? Assuming that the drive is mounted so that the ESS Ethernet connector is accessible in the back face of a controller enclosure , it will mean that the DC power for the drive will need to enter through the enclosure back face as well. Not necessarily ideal.
    Consider repositioning them for internal access or adding a duplicate set so that both internal and external access is available. You could also use vertical mount connectors rather than the R/A ones mounted on the board.




    Cheers

    Peter



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Quote Originally Posted by ger21 View Post
    Does the G570 work without the ESS?
    Initially the GR570 will be ESS only, and that will be our preferred way of controlling it. We plan on having several different motherboards that accommodate other motion controllers like the UC300 eventually, but the guys at Warp9 are doing some pretty cool things and there is some great potential on the horizon. Greg actually just flew out here last week so we could go over some design concepts in person and begin the integration. We have been working on this since early this year and things are finally wrapping up into a pretty fantastic product.

    We are thinking about making the pricing completely modular, with a base price for a two axis system and then adding a set amount for however many axes you actually need. Most people do not need six axes so it would price out a lot of people to be paying for two or three axes they would not be using. We are still waiting on the final BOM to be completed but it is looking like it will be in the same ballpark at the G540 when it was first released. This will also work with every ESS currently in the field so if you already have one you do not need to purchase a new one. You can instantly upgrade your machine and more than double your power for pretty cheap, and all you have to do is plug in your ESS.

    Another point to touch on is a minor technical change that was made this week: We are ditching the MOSFETs we were going to use after some internal testing on heat dissipation and will be using larger ones rated up to 80VDC. That means the GR570 will be rated at 80VDC and 7A per axis, just like the GR204V and GR214V. Right now we are exploring different MOSFET options and cooling techniques, including an integrated fan and small finned heatsinks integrated into the unit itself.

    Quote Originally Posted by phomann View Post
    Hi Macus,
    It looks great. Especially the ESS integration. Presumably the two 2-pin pluggable connectors on the end of the motherboard are for the split power supply? Assuming that the drive is mounted so that the ESS Ethernet connector is accessible in the back face of a controller enclosure , it will mean that the DC power for the drive will need to enter through the enclosure back face as well. Not necessarily ideal.
    Consider repositioning them for internal access or adding a duplicate set so that both internal and external access is available. You could also use vertical mount connectors rather than the R/A ones mounted on the board.
    That is correct on the split power connections there. I am afraid I am a bit unclear on the connector positioning you are referring to; do you mean the ESS power plug? All power for the ESS is going to be leeched off of the GR570 regulators so there is no need to power it individually. The "top" of the GR252 boards you see there is actually the bottom of them, but that is going through a quick redesign to accommodate the larger MOSFETs.

    The mounting of the whole board is going to depend on the cover used, and we are thinking of something similar to the G540 with tabs on two sides. We also get requests for DIN mounting and we are looking into adding that as a native option or making an adapter.

    Sorry if I totally missed the point of your request as per the power plugs!

    Marcus Freimanis
    www.geckodrive.com


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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Hi Marcus

    I see the confusion. I was talking about the CNC enclosure, not the G570 enclosure.

    I can work with your layout by using an Ethernet panel mount cable.

    Cheers
    Peter


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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    That means the GR570 will be rated at 80VDC and 7A per axis
    There will be no more debate anymore, it will satisfy the needs for big motor. But if we use ESS, we will get no more support from very popular mach3. I like mach3 that they have 4 axis and lathe.



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Quote Originally Posted by CoAMarcus View Post
    Initially the GR570 will be ESS only, and that will be our preferred way of controlling it. We plan on having several different motherboards that accommodate other motion controllers like the UC300 eventually.
    Having used a lot of Gecko drivers both G540 and G203V ( putting together a few new control cabinets with G540's as I type this ), The GR570 looks to be a cool new option. I do not care for Mach 3 / 4 so sadly would have little interest in a option with a built in ESS. However the above statement gives me hope. I look forward to a option that is compatible with Linuxcnc, I would like to see a Linuxcnc Ethernet option from warp9 I think they could offer a quality product. But for now, perhaps using the Mesa's Ethernet 7I92H card ? I look forward to seeing how the GR570 progresses.



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Quote Originally Posted by 509Maker View Post
    We plan on having several different motherboards that accommodate other motion controllers like the UC300 eventually.
    Hey Marcus, that sounds really interesting. I can't wait to see that option.



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    I do not care for Mach 3 / 4 so sadly would have little interest in a option with a built in ESS.
    Yes, Mach3 is a dead product, and Mach4 is not nearly as popular. Most people are moving to alternatives these days, like UCCNC or Centroid Acorn.

    Gerry

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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Quote Originally Posted by 509Maker View Post
    I look forward to a option that is compatible with Linuxcnc, I would like to see a Linuxcnc Ethernet option from warp9 I think they could offer a quality product.
    I cannot speak for them but it was discussed as being an option in the future for the ESS. I'd stay tuned because there are some pretty cool things going on with the ESS.

    Since my last post we have updated a few things for the next prototype revision, namely the power section on the drives. We were originally going to use SMT MOSFETs on the drive that promised a very low RDS On but it turned out to be neither space- nor cost-saving to do so. The new motor control algorithm runs a motor at just above room temperature and is extremely efficient with the MOSFETs, limiting I2R heating, but we still worry about having six drive running at a total of 42A at 80VDC. Because of this we have chosen the ultra-efficient MOSFET from our GR214V to be in the final design. The increase in board size was minimal but adds quite a few options due to the increased real estate. An integrated fan will use forced air cooling that should keep everything running cooler than any other drive.

    The motherboard is now going to be almost entirely a dumb power conversion board with two switching regulators and not a whole lot else aside from interconnects. The I/O has been removed from the motherboard and put onto separate "accessory boards" that we are going to standardize a pinout and footprint for. Initially there will only be one option for these, which will contain a total of 15 pins each, with a DC (+), 8 input/outputs, 3 dedicated high speed inputs for home switches, and a VFD controller. This means a fully loaded GR570 would have 16 inputs or outputs, 6 home switches or high speed inputs, and two VFD controllers. The redundancy on the VFD controller is something we are looking to avoid, but may be necessary to avoid increased cost to the user via more hardware on the board.

    As mentioned before, the larger size for the drive inside opened up a lot of new options for us. On each board will now be a five position 3.5mm terminal block right next to the motor connector, allowing for an encoder with index to go straight to the motion controller inside as well as to the drive itself. The enormity of this is not to be understated as it opens up numerous new pathways for the drive right out of the gate. The GR205, the name for the now-larger boards inside, is being designed with provisions to run a stepper motor, a closed loop stepper motor, a BLDC servo motor and a brushed DC servo motor all from the same chassis. The user just needs to choose what kind of motor they plan on running with the DIP switch. Theoretically you could have your spindle motor, two open loop steppers, two closed loop steppers and a BLDC all controlled from the GR570 (although I have no idea what kind of machine would require that setup). Right out of the gate we will be having these as open loop stepper drives just like the G540, but very soon after we hope to allow for a firmware update to incorporate these different motor types.

    Everything on the GR570 is being designed with extreme attention to detail to make sure it is a mature product at launch. We will be running a semi-closed beta with some of our distributors and may run a contest so you can get your hands on pre-production beta units free of charge. We want these to be used in every situation possible so they can be abused every way possible, allowing us to improve protection circuitry and user options.

    So, with that said, the main thing I am curious about is the accessory boards. We have fifteen pins on each one and a total of two ports that they can be plugged into. What would make your life easier to have incorporated on there? We were thinking about torch height control but the power electronics required for that are fairly large, making it impossible to fit in the case. Is there anything that you currently have to buy a small accessory piece of electronics for that could be stuffed into the GR570?

    Marcus Freimanis
    www.geckodrive.com


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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    My machine runs a G 540 and Mach 3 software. Several years ago I tried the USB unit from Warp 9 and could never get it to work- later I tried the ESS unit and it worked, but did not have feedback for control of the spindle for threading. It took a long time and a lot of posts on the Warp 9 forum before they finally admitted that it was not possible, and then they promised updates "soon" which never materialized. Does the new ESS have the ability to feedback to a VFD for CNC threading? Also, what type of power supply will be required- will you offer a matching power supply for buyers of the new unit?



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    Default Re: Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

    Does the new ESS have the ability to feedback to a VFD for CNC threading?
    I think for threading, what you need is Mach3 Spindle Index Sensors - Spindle Feedback and Threading!

    You can take a look at this :



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Geckodrive Thanksgiving Sale 2018 and New Product Line Announcement

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