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Author Topic: Help with new SS board and servo motors on Gecko drives  (Read 5919 times)

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Offline ticoe

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Help with new SS board and servo motors on Gecko drives
« on: July 06, 2009, 06:27:59 PM »
Hi Everyone    I need help  Iam at my witts end           I've converted from steppers to servos on one of my milling machines and mach3 seems to have gone stupid, well maybe I did. I have several problems and maybe someone can help me with.  First I have a new Smothe Stepper board onto an cnc4you C11 breakout board going to three 320's gecko drives powering two 1/2 horse brushed 24 vdc motors on the X and Y and 1/10 hp on the Z axis all on US DIGITAL 5 encoders with wire lenght under 7 feet.  Iam exagerating but they dont seen to be able to cut thru wet tissue paper!  No power?. I have the Gain  and Limit settings all the way up on the geckos and the Dampener abuot 75 % up and the are steady and sound and run good, untill you put metal in front of them. Ive considered putting the Gecko drives right by the motors? I live in South Florida and my phone No. is 954 347 5807 If some could help either by phone or here I would apprisiate it..........                HHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPP
Re: Help with new SS board and servo motors on Gecko drives
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2009, 06:49:02 PM »
Hi Everyone    I need help  Iam at my witts end           I've converted from steppers to servos on one of my milling machines and mach3 seems to have gone stupid, well maybe I did. I have several problems and maybe someone can help me with.  First I have a new Smothe Stepper board onto an cnc4you C11 breakout board going to three 320's gecko drives powering two 1/2 horse brushed 24 vdc motors on the X and Y and 1/10 hp on the Z axis all on US DIGITAL 5 encoders with wire lenght under 7 feet.  Iam exagerating but they dont seen to be able to cut thru wet tissue paper!  No power?. I have the Gain  and Limit settings all the way up on the geckos and the Dampener abuot 75 % up and the are steady and sound and run good, untill you put metal in front of them. Ive considered putting the Gecko drives right by the motors? I live in South Florida and my phone No. is 954 347 5807 If some could help either by phone or here I would apprisiate it..........                HHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPP

What kind of power supply are you running?  24V is kinda low for servos.  Are these real servos, or some kind of surplus DC motors you've slapped encoders on?  What is their current rating?  You indicate 1/2HP, which, at 24V, would imply about 15A.  Is 1/2HP the continuous or peak rating?  Under what conditions?

Regards,
Ray L.
Regards,
Ray L.

Offline simpson36

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Re: Help with new SS board and servo motors on Gecko drives
« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2009, 10:10:26 AM »
What is the symptom you are getting? Presumably the Gecko drives are faulting?

Putting the Gecko's near the motors probably will not help. I'm a little surpsised anything is working with the gain all the way up.

In addition to what HimyKabibble asked for you need to also supply:

How long is the wire from the power supply to the Gecko?

How many amps is the power supply?

What is the resolution of your encoders and what is the speed and acceleration in Mach set to?

Offline ticoe

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Re: Help with new SS board and servo motors on Gecko drives
« Reply #3 on: July 08, 2009, 07:58:14 AM »
Yes they are surplus dc motors, they lood identical to the ones advertise at Keling.  What is the diffrence between A regular dc motor and a servo motor, are they not he same thing.

32 amp power transformer "power supply"  and since then, I raised the voltage to 52 volts an iam getting better results.

encoders are US Digital  E5 by 200.

Mach set to 11000 plus steps  speed at 30 and velocity at 5

Yes the gain is all the way up and so is the limits.

Power supply is about 10 inches away from the geckos.

1/2 hp at 15 amps contineus is correct .

Offline Jeff_Birt

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Re: Help with new SS board and servo motors on Gecko drives
« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2009, 09:32:47 AM »
A 1/2 hp continuous motor is 6~8" in diameter and 10~12" long. I suspect you have 1/2 hp peak motors. What voltage are your motors designed to be run at?

A servo motor is a specialized type of motor. While technically you can slap an encoder on any DC motor and control it via a servo loop the results will not always be good.
Happy machining , Jeff Birt
 

Offline comet

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Re: Help with new SS board and servo motors on Gecko drives
« Reply #5 on: July 08, 2009, 01:14:43 PM »
Have you matched your peak motor revs,with a reasonable max feed,i.e. are the motors geared correctly?
if they are just mounted directly onto the lead screws you could be over geared.

Offline ticoe

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Re: Help with new SS board and servo motors on Gecko drives
« Reply #6 on: July 08, 2009, 05:42:47 PM »
No they are not mouted directly to the lead screws, they are on a four to one ratio via timming belts and running at 20 inch a minute.

Yes I guess the motors are 24v  peek    They are phisicly about 4.5 inches by 10 inch long and they are not the same.
One turns freely by hand, or free spining without power, while the other seams to be like (sorta) like a stepper in that it does not spin freely, it has lumps?

I swicht motor around today and put X on Y and Y on X  and things got better.  Originaly the X had the ( lumpy) motor. Also separated the signal cable and the power cables apart and that also helped  a bit.

It seamed that if you would grab the hand wheel on the mill in the X axis under power, that you would be able to turn the wheel in one direction only and lose steps with out faulting the gecko drive, the other direction it was steady.   ?????

 Let me be real, Things are getting better everyday,  And I apreciate everyones help.          THANK YOU ALL