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Author Topic: Is there a low cost alternative Digital Step Drive?  (Read 2544 times)

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Is there a low cost alternative Digital Step Drive?
« on: November 09, 2013, 03:52:30 PM »
Is there a lower cost alternative Digital Step  drive that works like the Gecko G540?   I understand though you get what you pay for.  Thanks!
Re: Is there a low cost alternative Digital Step Drive?
« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2013, 04:27:07 PM »
Lloyd,
Depending u[on your requirements, this one is hard to beat, if you know how to solder.  http://www.hobbycnc.com/
John Champlain

Offline Jeff_Birt

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Re: Is there a low cost alternative Digital Step Drive?
« Reply #2 on: November 09, 2013, 05:07:42 PM »
There are several cheaper drives but none that offer the value for the money spent. Most other stepper drives use off the shelf stepper driver chips that offer only a fraction of the performance of the G250 drives inside the G540. Then if you add in all the ancillaries to get the same feature set: optical isolation, two high current relay drivers, VFD output, charge pump circuit you will spend almost as much money and get lower performance. I have a lot of customers who started with the cheaper boards and when they finally moved up to a G540 (because the cheaper board was not satisfactory or blew up) they are shocked by the performance difference.
Happy machining , Jeff Birt