How ready for prime time?

[carllance]

So, I have placed an order and am on the list to get one...  When I am able to get it, is it ready for my main machine? 

CNC Router, 5' x 10' travels.  Basic movement for 6 axis (X/Y, dual head Z/W, rotary axis), e-stop, limit/home switches, tool height touch plate, pendant (shuttle usb), Variable Frequency Drive for perske spindle (9HP 3 phase), index input on rotary axis (could use as lathe some day), touch probe.

Run at 400-500ipm, top speed 800ipm right now.  Set to about 2000 steps per inch due to gearing (exact number not in front of me).

I tried the G-Rex, which had so much potential but was always missing some feature that I needed that was just about to be fixed or released but never was...   What should I expect of the Smoothstepper TODAY?

Any thoughts?  I would love this to work wonderfully.  Realize the need to put the money where the mouth is, and help fund any great developments, so I have ordered one regardless.  But where is it really at right now?

THANKS!

Carl

[Chris Buchanan]

Carl,  I have had a Smooth Stepper running my 5' X 10' Ganrty CNC for several months now.  I was using 2 LPT ports previously with a spindle speed control board, 4 axis motors(x slaved),Tool height touch probe, MPG, coolant and Vacuum.  All running nicely with Mach 3 via the LPT ports with the exception of the speed.  My machine needs 36,285 pulses per inch...so I had implemented electronic gearing within my servo drive to get it down by a factor of 5 and could only run at around 372 IPM that way.  I literally removed the 2 db-25 cables from my LPT ports on my pc, and plugged them into a ribbon cable adapter then into the smooth stepper, and loaded the smooth stepper plug-in and was right back up to running.  The only change was I eliminated the pulse multiplier in the servo drives and changed my steps per inch to actual (36,285) and re-tuned my motors from mach.

Everything worked as expected but now I can rapid @ 1200 IPM which is my servos max rpm, not a limitation of the smooth stepper.  The main differences are the homing is slightly different and the software limits do not ramp the motors down to a stop prior to encountering a limit switch.  I have not even checked to see if there is an update for this yet.  As I said I have been running for a couple of months and have not checked for an update so this feature may be working as it should now but I don't know.

In my case I needed speed with a high steps per inch count, so the SmoothStepper was a perfect solution for me even if I had to give up software limits for a while.

Overall I am very impressed, and the reliability seems to be rock solid as I have had no issues with the usb.

I hope this helps,

Chris

[Hood]

Few problems still with the SmoothStepper but nothing major and the problems are getting worked on an unlike the G100 I have every confidence they will be sorted soon. I have been involved with the SmoothStepper since the beginning and when I first got it there were a lot of problems, these were sorted quickly by Greg and I have been using the SS on my mill for 6 months now. I have put the Beta SS on a coil winding machine and one of the release versions is now on my mill.
 Some of the problems are
1. noise if no breakout is used, Greg is working on digital filtering but small caps accross the Inputs should solve the problem if you are needing immediate resolution, if you use Breakout boards then the noise shouldnt be a problem as they will have filtering. This I believe  is the reason Greg didnt have filtering on the SS as it would have meant there was double filtering.

2. SoftLimits dont work in the released PlugIn, I have tested a couple of beta plugins for Greg and they are getting very close to being perfect so my hopes are high this will be sorted very soon.

3. Spindle sync for Lathe threading is not done yet, think the last I heard Greg said it was 75% done but had hit a few snags. Dont worry about that though as Greg seems to be a master at getting round the problems and with Brian and Art on the Mach side of things they make a formidable team.

4. Backlash is not implemented, not sure on the status of this but think its a bit further down the list of things to do, once the above are sorted I think Greg will be working on that.

Might be a few other small bugs that you encounter with your specific machine but usually they can be sorted quickly just by slight configuration changes.

Overall the SS is a great product in my opinion and like Chris said above it will let machines move at the speeds they should without having to resort to electronic gearing.

Hood