Indexer

[carl]

A few weeks ago I decided to hook up an indexer to my alpha after I found out that I could use a different step driver to run my PK296 stepper motor. I had several problems doing this. I contacted Ted Hall at SB and he helped me out to try to get the driver to work on the alpha. We couldn’t figure out the problem so Ted told me to send my driver to him and he would take a look at it. Ted went above and beyond to try to help me with this, he even hooked up a hex inverter and wired it all up and got it working on an alpha board, he then sent it back to me. I tried running it on my machine and I cannot get it to take the low unit values. I talked to Ted again and we cannot get this thing to operate right at all, evidently he just had it hooked to the X axis with a high value and it worked great. The step driver I got off of eBay, which it worked great for the desk CNC software, this is actually a pretty nice 6 amp step driver. Since I cannot get this working right I was wondering if anyone has used a Gecko driver on an alpha machine and if so, have you tried it for the indexer with the low unit values. In theory it should work, but with having problems with my other driver I am very hesitant to spend the money for one without knowing if it works or not on an indexer.
Can anyone give me any input on this, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hats off to SB for all there tech support and especially to Ted Hall that went above and beyond to try to help me with this!!!!!! Carl

[Brady Watson]

Carl,
While I have not used Geckos on an Alpha machine, I am using a few of them on a CNC mill. They are very good and well worth the money. If you did purchase one and it didn't work, you should be able to get almost full price if you sold it used.

-Brady

[richards]

Carl,

I use the Gecko G212 stepper driver, but not on my Alpha. The G212 can be configured to give 200 steps per revolution, 400 steps, 1000 steps and 2000 steps. The problem with running a stepper at a very slow speed is heat. You'll probably need to a lower voltage to drive the stepper than you would if you were running the motor at its normal speed. If you visit the Gecko Drive web site, you can download the data sheets for the four different different stepper drivers that Mariss sells. Pay particular attention to the part that explains how to adjust the drives current with a fixed resistor and note that you should have a power supply that delivers at least four times the stepper motor's rated voltage, but not more than twenty-times the rated voltage (and not more than 70VDC).

If you decided to go the Gecko route, and if you need some help, drop me an email. I have a test setup running four G212 stepper drivers.

[carl]

Thanks for the reply guys, I appreciate the info. Mike when I do get around to doing this again, I will be emailing you if you don't mind helping me with this.
Carl