G540 - 4 motor connection problem

[paulus.v]

Or better still do your self Bigger favor and sell it then buy Leadshine AM882 Digital drives and use Unregulated toroidal supply. The difference in machine performance will be night and day and you'll never have any issues.

Totally agree! I've got the AM882 drives on his recommendation and I'm very satisfied by their performance. Lower noise and vibrations, better performance at high speeds, software configuration, auto-tunning, etc. And you can give your steppers 60-65V for better performance.

[dachopper]

Totally agree! I've got the AM882 drives on his recommendation and I'm very satisfied by their performance. Lower noise and vibrations, better performance at high speeds, software configuration, auto-tunning, etc. And you can give your steppers 60-65V for better performance.

Well - I've got the G540 working on 30 volts with the 4 motors, I've just had to ramp down the voltage significantly to achieve it.

Looked at the leadshine - are you using a Bob or some other thing to break the sigs out into a useable format to run wires?

I ran the G540 for a 7 hour job, and it completed without any problems, so - apart from the fault causing me to run slower, I'm going to reserve my judgement - hopefully there is a simple fix


I'm going to call Gecko tomorrow and see if I can get anywhere with them.

[paulus.v]

Looked at the leadshine - are you using a Bob or some other thing to break the sigs out into a useable format to run wires?

I'm still using the parallel port with a good BOB.

[dachopper]

Update - I finally skyped tech support, and they have been great.

The problem appears to be the result of several factors, but is related to switching power supply / 4 motor combo / and a setting on the G540

Gecko are testing out a mod to the G540 to see if they can get it to work with this power supply in particular, and the 4 motors I have.

I'll let you know the result incase others have the same issue.

Nick

[A_Camera]

Update - I finally skyped tech support, and they have been great.

The problem appears to be the result of several factors, but is related to switching power supply / 4 motor combo / and a setting on the G540

Gecko are testing out a mod to the G540 to see if they can get it to work with this power supply in particular, and the 4 motors I have.

I'll let you know the result incase others have the same issue.

Nick

Never the less, as several people already pointed out, that PSU is under powered for 4 x 3.5A motors. Build a torioidal transformer based PSU and you'll never look back...

[John S]

Better still scrap the outdated Gecko and get something at least designed in this century.

[dachopper]

We will see, if the new power supply fixes the problem, I'm happy. If not I will probably try the leadshine the am882 quite cheap now it's no longer made, much different to new em series? . It's by no means a "cheap" change so we will see.

I did get my x axis running at 18,000 mm/min when I changed to the 42 volt pwr from 30 volt, so I should get another increase going to the max 50.

To clarify gecko tech support told me that 48 volt should be fine to use, and anything up to 50 volt should be fine with this system. IE it is designed and tested to run at higher voltages, and downrated to 50 volts for the consumer to avoid issues and to include a large enough safety buffer. Anything that fails below 50 is an anomaly.