welding steel base or just getting aluminium extrusion

[Edward]

I have an Am and two EM's on my milling machine and I can't see much of a difference to be honest.

However, for my new router I am using four EM's. As you say, Neale, the stall function really works, I had my milling machine travel out of bounds without a limit switch and as soon as it hit the end, the driver stopped it preventing any damage. Also good for when you make a mistake and go too severe with your cut, it soon stalls the movement and prevents further damage.

My thought is, if you can afford it, buy EM's from Zapp, they are actually quite reasonably priced and it's just a one off expense anyway and it supports a UK firm. If you really are on a very tight budget, buy AM's from China, but expect customs duty, some wait and at the end of the day, you are not saving much more than a round of beers, if that.

[Desertboy]

Customs duty is fickle but split your purchases and send to friends to eliminate them for stuff like this. I paid £15 on my first 2 and nothing on the next 3 and the one that was faulty I probably blew up as I also blew up a toroidal transformer so that's down to me being crap lol.

I can understand what your saying but you can buy 4 New AM882's for £240 delivered vs £440 for the EM806's that's quite a few rounds of beers in Leicester lol. If I was on a budget it's here I'd save my £200 to spend elsewhere say on PSU or upgrade the ballscrews/Hiwin sizes.

The limit is £40 from China I've found split the deliveries and anything under £100 you don't get charged. I spent less than £70 on tax on my router build and over £1200 from China and most my tax was the ballscrews.

I think the £200 buys you a replacement EM806 if one goes wrong which is a good warranty for me ;)

I too have crashed 2 out of 3 axis on my router and stall protection kicked straight in ;) so if I have clones I have working clones.

There is after all 2 ways to clone this drive
1. Make an exact clone with same chips or equiv and use the same firmware, done right the difference between the original and clone is minimal and sometimes clones are actually better.
2. Put a cheap driver in a copy AM882 box and the stall protection ports are not connected to anything lol. Hack the firmware so the dip switches make sense.