Ok, more pictures to help you...

Attachment 9755

Attachment 9756

maybe its time for new point of view.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK5eYhpBtQc

Don’t want to be an “ass” or off topic, by my 2 cents opinion….
"This scroll on the one side took me all afternoon to carve by hand...and it's not perfect
That is part, an important part that is of what is considered “art” and should be.....in some sense ! Robert ;)

Yes I agree, but I am lazy and impatient and if technology can help me I am for it....it is like woman giving birth with pain medicine these day's. They say if it is available, GIVE IT TO ME!:D

I think if they had the option they would surely use a BabyMate to pregnant
a baby for them the whole 9 months instead of getting fat :D:D

THERE is LIFE after GECKO
 

Well I decided to jump into the deep-end and try something different. These little UIM24004 drivers that Mr. Tiger advertised caught my eye. Hennie and myself decided to give it a go. Brought in a couple drivers and went through HELL with our Customs and DHL. Ended up waiting 10 day's for delivery and R 1091.00 extra for taxes etc. But that is another story.

These things are SMALL or is it small ?

Attachment 9806

At the back the motor terminals

Attachment 9807

Come in a box with screws, heat sink compound and a flange. I asked for all the available flanges to test. In future will use the middle size one. It give some space for the wires to clear the unit when mounted on the heatsink.

Attachment 9808

The first Gecko removed and the UIM online for testing.

Attachment 9809

Then when I was happy that it works I drilled and tapped new 3mm holes and mounted them all on the ALU heatsink. Used connecting blocks as the terminals are VERY small and I did not want to modify my existing setup too much.

Attachment 9810

Ran it of a HP power supply as I am still waiting for my new transformer.

Set up the driver for 1/16 step, did some changes in Mach3 and here is the proof.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYZuWw3SwkY

You can post mine when you are ready,I would try and trash them on MM 23 B with some box cutting.Kobus do you have some Q20:).

net vaseline :D

I am following this with great interest.
Is this new driver cheaper? What makes it more attractive than the Gecko drive?

I will drive to the post office in my Chinese pickup to go and fetch my parcel.:eek:

Watch this space, I want to test it some more when I receive my new transformer....then make it work hard to see if it can keep up and then if I am 110% happy that it can keep on driving a MechMate then maybe you will be able to buy it at a good price from a frindly MechMate owner.

are you confident that signal levels will travel from you breakout board all the way to the motors noise free? Thats my main doubt.

Pablo,

I don't have experience with these stepper, but knowing my electronics a bit, the frequency shouldn't be a problem.

Techniques to 'transfer' digital information is done already for ages, and the 50Khz + some harmonics can be easily transfered through audio cables.
Important with digital signals is to match input and output impedance of the driver (BoB) and receiver (Stepper motor driver) to prevent reflections in the cable. But again, at these low frequencies this isn't a problem.

It has crossed my mind also to just have one power cable to the MM, and then the drivers on the MM. I didn't opt for that because nobody did it yet :D.

Kobus,

What do you feel you have gained by changing out your Geckos for the UI Robot Drives besides price?

Thanks

Pablo,
Kobus has them mounted in his control box just like the geckos. So they are acting just like the geckos with short step and dir signals.
Kobus, are you planning on mounting them on the steppers at a later date?

Kobus

Nothing like an experiment to prove if something works or not.
I see you have the plate to mount the driver on the stepper in the photos you posted so just let me know what I need to do to further encourage you into reckless experimentation at your expense and its done, haha.

Seriously though electronics can run hotter than some of the figures quoted on the forum, just take the SATA hard drives, CPU's and GPU's as an example.

Very interesting stuff - like the rest of em I'm watching too.

Regards
Ross

Hello Kobus, you can try it out mounting the driver directly onto your motors. ;)

Ok ok..looks like some people READ the posts but does not take it in..even with pictures :D

Thanks Heath for pointing it out again that I run as per my old setup with the drives IN my control box. Since I have a machine that does not generate income..only pleasure... I will put the driver ON the motor to prove the concept. Will get some wire this week and try it out.

Nils, don't get me wrong. The Gecko's are fantastic drives, but the MechMate concept is to build a professional working machine that is affordable. For the average Joe Soap this is an item where we can save some money to bring the total cost of the machine down. Why buy a Mercedes Benz C63 AMG to drive from A - to - B if you can also do it in a Mini... ok maybe not is the same class, but what the heck if it gets the job done WHY NOT.

Kobus,

I am not questioning any reason you are trying these. I am looking at what benefit they give besides the cost savings. Not critical from my side. I think it is a great idea to lower cost. Just like belt drive allow lower cost motors.

But you did not answer my question? Have you noticed any differnece in the way your machine runs with these? Is there a benefit besides cost?

Nils as long as the router cuts along the x,y and z axis the way it is suppose to do then it doesn`t make any difference on the benefit`s compared to gecko`s. The main object is to save money on something that can generate an income.I am also going to test these on my machine and in my workshop I don`t see it as a hoby machine as it is quite capable of doing the job the same as more pricey cnc machines.The one thing that I can see as a benefit over the gecko`s is that I can always have a spare driver and if it packs up I can cuck it in file 13 and replace it without feeling pissed off at spending R 1500.00 ( in our currency) on a gecko that can also give troubles ( I have also lost one along the last year).
We still need to see if it will last but hey lets try them like the chinese stepper motors and spindles as untill now I havn`t seen any bad feedback from other builders.

Using the step/direction version of these drivers and mounting inside the control box is indeed very similar to using Geckos, and eliminates the concerns raised (noise on long wires for the step and direction signals; heat from the motor and driver affecting each other; no Mach interface to CAN bus).

It does appear that the specifications of the UI Robot drives are closer to the G25x (used inside the G540, and also available standalone) than to the G20x drives - lower max voltage, for example.

So, based on the data so far, it appears that the key decision point would be shipping and customs costs and time to your location.

I'm curious as to the sound - certain early chopping microstepper drivers would make the motors "sing" at a high frequency when in operation. I assume that UIRobot doesn't have this issue as it hasn't been mentioned.

Nils, I have just come in from the shop. I cut the 6mm BEE file that was posted a few weeks back. The only difference is that I had to re-calibrate the machine and is still feeling my way around tuning the motors in Mach and using the setup of each tool in Vectric to give me a cut that I am happy with. The cut quality is the same from what I am used with when it was driven by Gecko's.

Now that I can monitor the volts and amps on the power supply I can see what my machine draws. When cutting the bee with a 3mm straight cutter at 2.5mm per pass it never went above 3 amps.

After 45 minutes cutting, everything was a nice temperature...not hot at all. Even running 38 volts compared to 52 volts previously, no speed problems.

So far I am very happy.

My other concern was the lack of Gecko's to respond to my e-mail when I had that failure a while ago. I asked them some questions and up to today none was received. Like Hennie said...nobody can work on this thing and when it fails, you simply throw it away. Compare $48.00 to $148 for a Gecko..... I will go for the $48.00 any day....and have a couple spare in case one fails.

Howzit Kobus,

Yesterday you were on Mechmate and today you are all over the world! ;-)

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106893

Groete,

Excuse me, we are trying to build up integrated stepper servo system. Hello Kobus, please show them you can spare the control box. :D

Hi Greg, want one to test ? Did not see that yet on CNC Zone.

But I am still in Brakpan having problems getting my Bee together. Anybody please help as to what goes where ? I am stupid with 3D and drawings as you all know.

Attachment 9823

Kobus, please keep up updated on your testing. I might be next on board. Second build will begin soon.

Kobus,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my question. Saving money is important but you don't want to scarfice performance and it looks like that is not a problem.

Please keep posting what you are finding as you test the units.

Kobus,

Are you going to hook up the 5th Axis to your BOB now? Much easier than swopping the wires.

"Excuse me, we are trying to build up integrated stepper servo system." - I consider myself k*ked out! ;)

Groete,

Not to worry about my little bee. My eldest son sat down and in a couple of seconds sorted it out.

I am thinking of putting in a permanent analog amp meter.. like the idea to monitor the amps...will look impressive I think.. maybe one on each motor and then one on the total current drawn.

I might just do that now Greg. Let me first play with the extra drivers, then maybe one will get a permanent place in the control box.

I told Tiger in an e-mail that I don't see us walking away from a BOB as it has many extras that we use to switch the spindle to e-stop and proxys.

Kobus as I was saying earlier. If you take four of the drivers and place them on the aluminium heat shield the size of the fan 120mm x 120 mm and mount the fan under then, 1 you save space in the control box and 2 they are on top of the fan so heat shouldn`t be a issue.I can`t fit them on my motors as they are round and I am still thinking that I would use the same motors as the ones I used on #23 with the gearbox as up to now they have been giving good service.

I had a client the other day ( another kitchen company competition)that needed something .I did made the item for him and guess what he gave me the wrong measurements so we made another one according to the right measurements. guess what he only wanted to pay for the right one and how can I charge him for his mistakes.Dam if the MM is right you pay for both and did my kids enjoy this afternoon:)

I don't see the argument for mounting them on the motors in our application. Why lengthen the sensitive signal cables and shorten the power cables?

Good thread !!! I am looking forward to this one !!!

Gerald, I agree with the motor mounted drives. I was just thinking about application that were not MM specific when mounting these little buggers to the drive. Keep the control wires close to home in the cabinet is a grand idea.

Out of sight out of mind.

UIM drivers don't like 10 meters of signal wire
 

Ok, Saturday I was busy...had to cut some stuff for a friend..

Attachment 9879

And we had to prepare for my son's 21 birthday party, so testing of the driver attatched to the motor was delayed until today.

Mounted everything....

Attachment 9880

But as we expected running 5volt signals ove a 10 meter CAT-5 cable does not work for us.

Voltdrop on the 38 volt was not the problem....measured it and it stayed 38 volt at the driver/stepper combination. Giving the unit pulses to jog, there was some 'jitter and hum' but not movement. Direction I could feel it wanted to change, but it did not drive the motor.

Put everything back to NORMAL and she was singing again.

@robotdigg:

From what I understand from kobus is that the 5V signals don't arrive in a good conditions at the drivers, this is properly due to the voltage drop in the cable.
Controlling the drivers by RS232 (signals I assume) doesn't make to much sense IMHO, the maximum distance given by RS232 spec is 15m, very close that the distance from control box to our actual drives.

Do you have any drivers available that can be controlled with RS485 signaling? Just out of curiosity..

Ries

Mach3 does not talk to CAN/RS232/RS485 for controlling the steppers, my doubt was confirmed by Kobus, long travels for signal levels aren't a good choice, these drivers are just one more alternative to pricey geckos :)

robotdigg, I think you misunderstand how Mach3 works. Do you have any evidence that Mach3 works with CANbus or RS232 or RS485?

Unless you can produce a demonstration of that configuration, please don't state that it will work.

Note that many of us would be very happy to see such a configuration work, but we need to see the evidence, as there are technological obstacles to overcome.

robotdigg, I think you can buy Mach3 straight from the internet.

@pablo, I think it's possible to still use these if the BoB can do a better job in sending signals. One could think of drivers that drives the steppers using current, rather then voltage this will then prevent the voltage drop, and it will work over long signal cables. However, that means you need to make some electronics...

No it can't, at least not in the current stable or develpment releases. Mach3 only sends realtime step and direction signals to drivers.
Mach3 is designed to work with a parallel port or motion controllers like smoothstepper.
The only way I could imagine these serial drivers could work with mach3 would be to have a board in the middle with some intelligence for motion planning, but this would nullify the price difference...

@riesvantwisk of course, but the BoB's that we use do not have this capability


Here is a Mariss post about a serial controller he is developing:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showpo...7&postcount=13

I have read Maris his post, and although it looks very interesting, I think there is plenty for Mach3 and EMC still. From what I read is that he wanted to push some of the responsibilities from PC to drivers, specially the step/dir pulses to be closer to the drivers.

This is all nice, but you still need a G-Code interpreter (not easy at all!) and I wonder how Maris is trying to make it compatible with some of the (Semi) hobby controllers like EMC and Mach3 for motion planning. I don't read anything about feedback using his board, or he is planning to use parallel again? But some switches or devices must be read in near real time that can be done very well in Mach3 or EMC.

it's something to keep an eye on it though...