Hi,
  can anyone tell me, when using a seperate psu for the power feed to an encoder, atatched to a
gecko g340, do you need to common up the 0 volts if so which 0volts,othewise it seems to me that there is no continuity.
  on the a & b encoder lines back to its psu.
    I dont want to risk blowing a drive and I have had no reply from gecko on the matter.
    cheers
    Tony

You need to have the two power supplies with the same common... That is why you need to connect the ground lines of the two power supplies...

You can get encoders from UsDigital that will work very well with the Geckos..

Thanks
Brian

Cheers Brian,
  that confirms what I thought,I bought some new BEC 260's off ebay for a steal,
but they really require 150 ma @5volt a little bit to much for the gecko's.

  While Im here ,what would haooen if I put 12 volt into the encoders (there rated 5-24)?
would that increase the A B voltage or do all encoders output a standard voltage?
  thanks again
       Tony