Smooth stepper
 

am courious what advantage i will get using a smooth stepper unit from warp9 tech design
I am using mach3
gecko g203
pmdx-122 breakout board. stepper motor 9412ktg-a6497 Oriental Motor

thanks Paul

We have 4 MechMates, some with smoothsteppers, some without. We can't tell the difference without opeing the cabinets to look inside.

ok thanks

The SmoothStepper is the equivalent of using two parallel ports. When used with two PMDX-122 boards or one PMDX-126 board, you will have additional I/O compared to using a single PMDX-122 board.

Many of the newer mother boards do not have a parallel port on-board. The SmoothStepper uses USB instead of Parallel Port connections, so you won't have to add a PCI Parallel Port.

The SmootStepper can handle faster speeds than the Parallel Port (according to the documentation). That may be an advantage if you use a gearbox or belt-drive that requires more than 45,000 pulses per second.

The SmoothStepper costs a lot more than two PCI parallel port cards, so, weigh the advantages of that single card against buying two $10 cards.

Mike, I hear that there is now a version of the Smoothstepper that runs off the Ethernet port . . .

See http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...6867#post56867

Gerald/Mike

The ESS is definitely out there, Ross is running one with success and I was, sadly mine sustained a failure (unexplained) within the internal power supply on the board and is subsequently being replaced, this aside it seams like a nice solution despite the cost, one of the attractions for me is that it allows the controller machine to be housed relatively remotely (by parrallel cable standards) as well as to control 2 BoB's with a minimum of cabling (can do three but for the moment 2 is enough for me). The documentation that is available for it is pretty basic and leaves, at least for me, a few questions unanswered (but it works).

Just a few thoughts

I know this thread is old but I wanted to add that I installed a new computer
in my control box this past week with a smooth stepper ethernet board.
I have tuned it as described in the instructions and my experience is it is a definite improvement, the machine runs quieter, smoother, and I am getting noticeably better cuts, I also upgraded to the latest version of mach 3,
it was definitely worth the time and expense to do the upgrade, and with the new pc it also is 15 to 20 degrees cooler in the control box as well
( I have the mother board power supply hard drive mounted inside my control box) I think the key is to spend the time to set the proper frequency on the axes and main com freq.

//chopper

Chopper I see you're still lurking in the underground :) I've been thinking of going to a ESS too but wanted to wait until something warranted the cost. Thanks for sharing.

Chopper what did it all cost you?

Nils,
the smooth stepper was 180.00 and the new pc was 180.00
so about 400.00 I bought the parts for the pc from new egg mother board processor and power supply, I had a hard drive and the memory on hand as well as a copy of win 7, the rest was time and a little reading.
//chopper

I am torn between the ESS and the CSMIO/IP.

I've not used either, but from what I've read, the CSMIO/IP-S is a far superior product. The price reflects it, though, at close to 4x the price of an ESS.

My next machine will be using the CSMIO/IP-S.

The CSMIO leads in my opinion because of the 24 DC standard. But the ESS is less money and would add onto my existing hardware. That is where I get torn apart at. Hard to sell used electronic equipment even in good condition. Which would be my only option to be able to purchase.

In addition to the 24V, you also get homing to an index signal (with servos).
It's expandable to 192 Inputs/ 96 Outputs (more money)
No breakout boards needed.
Supposedly much better plugin support.

I read that Warp9 is adding a programmer, so hopefully they'll get better in that department.

Cheaper 4 Axis CSMIO IP-M 4 now supports motor slaving but only "basic"
probably without gantry squaring as they say

I just installed one CSMIO IPS 6, configured in seconds and performs flawless. Will see how it will keep up with Hypertherm HD4400 plasma cutter :)