SB Controller Driving Geckos
The last couple of weeks I’ve been working on trying to get gecko drivers to work with the Shopbot PRT control. With the help from Mike Richards on helping with some electronic questions, I’ve got a working test set up on my old PR machine. Using the small original 270 oz motors, I’m able to achieve 10” a second jog speeds while feeding ½ steps to the geckos. I’m using the 212 geckos, which have a rate multiplier so the driver gets fed 5 step pulses for every step fed to it resulting in a 10 micro step mode.
I haven’t cut any material yet, but all movements are very smooth and the motors run much quieter. I’m not sure how much more testing I am going to do on the PR as I would have to change motors and I would be better off doing that on the new machine.
