Don't worry. The watt's are fine once you are above or at the demand of the motors. Anything more will cost you copper, money, and weight but that's it.
I use a 900Watt power supply for 4 1KW servo's. I limited the current in the drives so I won't kill the power supply. With the pulsed characteristics of the drives I never exceeded 800 Watts.
Don't worry, you'll be fine. And yes, Bipolar Parallel has the best torque for your application.
It's all good.
Lemo

Thanks, it's all so complicated the first time building, I'm sure you'll agree.  I did send a note to keling to change to the 975watt.  That saves me 5 amps too, which works better I think too, less dedicated wiring.

Barry

I buy my power supply here:
http://www.antekinc.com/PS-10N63R.pdf

Take a close look at the 5V power supply section. if it's only regulated with a 7805 or similar chip then it's garbage.
Go get a couple of those: http://tinyurl.com/d7c7k2
They are switching power supplies with superior noise levels compared to the cheaply regulated ones.
If you would connect an oscilloscope to the simply regulated power supplies then you will see noise which can lead to steps or direction switches which will be all but impossible to debug later. The switching power supplies linearity is dead flat. That's where the switching power supplies lead. And for a BB you do not need power. A single amp usually is enough. aving 12 V as well is nice as some breakout boards also allow you to controll the spindle speed and for that you need the 12V to drive the VFD of the spindle from 4 to 10 Volts. aprox 7-18000RPM....

PS:I am not sure... but this might be Kelling's source ))

Lemo


PPS: Spindle VFD's with great service http://www.dealerselectric.com/


And yes, i bought those power supplies from China. Two weeks later a fun little box arrives with all sorts of cool stamps on it. No sweat and for $3.... I don;t even get the shrink tubing from the local electronics store for that amount...

Thought I'd show some progress.  Here's the start of my control box.  The breakout boards aren't in there yet, nor are the two other geckos, but it's coming along.  I've modeled the machine too, and will soon be ordering parts for the frame.  Wow, these things really add up!



Barry

If the Gecko's are just sitting on the metal cabinet sheet metal, then you will need a heat sink on the back. They do become warm and hot is a bad thing.
With gecko's I do not use a Breakout Board as the Gecko's are already opto insulated. What Software are you planing to use to generate the 5 axis toolpath?
Are you planing to 5 axis index machine or 5 axis continuous machine?
Rainer

I've got a box of heat sinks that I can add to the back.  Thanks for the suggestion.  I'm not sure what you mean by index vs continuous.  I'm still learning the stepper lingo;)

I'm planning on using Mach  3 initially for path generation.  It does do that, doesn't it?

Barry

Yes, you need a heat sink.

Mach3 is the trajectory planer not the path generator. All Mach3 does is translate movement Commands into step pulses. You need so called CAM software to create the movement commands from a drawing or 3d model.
And you need modeling software (CAD) like Rhino3D or similar to create the model or drawing.

5Axis indexed means that your work piece is rotated in 5 axis into place and then machined in three axis. Imagine a cube with an engraving on each side. The machine would rotate a cube face into position and then the machining will take place in 3 axis. 5Axis continuous is when all axis are moving at the same time and describe a rather complex path.

5Axis Cam Software is at least as expensive as the hardware you are building. MasterCam or Mecsoft's RhinoCam (I use the later one with good success) are the only ones I know which allow 5axis generation
Both charge extra for custom post processor development for a 5 axis machine. Add another bundle...

There is a highly experimental set of routines out there which utilize 3d animation packages to generate a 5 axis toolpath. But that requires that animation package which is not cheap and probably a year to get familiar with that...

Nothing is ever easy! Best of luck and keep the cutters sharp

Cheers
Rainer

PS:Here's a simple example of a 5 axis system using a trunion table as an alternative to 5 axis router heads.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0-tXDEvAqg

Hello,
Well, actually no... Mach 3 cannot generate paths. It can with wizards generate 2D and 2.5D toolpaths, and with Lazycam too, but not 3d toolpaths certainly not 5 or 6 axis.
Mach 3 will do what you tell it to do, so you need a CAM package to do the toolpaths,
5 axis CAM packages are expensive since they need to calculate tool offsets in 5 axis, there are a few out there. A freeware cam plugin is available for 3DS MAX, GMAX and Autodesk VIZ, it is called CNC Toolkit
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNC_Toolkit/
It works but it has a steep learning curve but it does work.

Now Indexing vs continuous:
Indexing refers to having some axes still while machining with the remaining ones. One example would be a 4th axis rotary table. you machine with 3 axis while holding the rotary table still, then turn the rotary 90 degrees and then machine again in 3 axis, then turn it another 90 degrees and machine again etc..etc..
Continuous is when all axes are moving at the same time.

Now with your control box, heatsinks are a must if your steppers are above 3 amps i think, but it is a good idea to have them even if its under that. you have 5 geckos mounted on your box, and you say you still need to mount TWO geckos more? that would be 7 geckos, and mach can only handle 6 with dual parallel ports.

Regards
Fernando

Also consider mounting the heatsink outside of the box to prevent heat build up in the box. Or push filtered air through the box to vent it.
R


PS:Just curious... not counting labor or software, what's your estimate on how much the system will cost you?

Yup, I'm using 7 geckos.  Two of them share the same signal but send out their windings oppositely to balance the load of the x axis.  A close example to what I'm doing is:

http://www.cnc-toolkit.com/gantry_router.html

My build is a bit more beefy than this one, but the principals are the same.  The 6xth axis will be a rotary table that I mount to the table.  I'll add that sometime later this year.

Heh, you don't want to know the price.  It's way more than I expected it would be;)

Barry