New member lots to learn

[m.marino]

Okay, time for me to pay a bit of my debt forward.

1) Stepper motors have a sweet spot on Voltage. In reality it is a sweet band of voltage that will allow it to operate at it's highest speeds while keeping accurate steps. The formula for that is one of two they are as follows (with examples):

A) \sqrt{I} * 1000. Where I = the inductance of the motor (normally in milliHenries) Which would look like this for an equation 3.2mH 0.032 \sqrt{0.0032}*1000. That equals .0565685 * 1000. Which gives you a rough voltage of 56.57V for optimum usage of the current that the motor will demand. Thereby avoiding coil saturation and the problems that is caused by that issue.

B) \sqrt{I}(ignoring mH) * 32 (interestingly very near the square root of 1000). That get you this \sqrt{3.2}*32. Which gets you 1.78885*32 and that in turn gives you 57.24V as a safety margin. Both of these equations where written to include safety margins. Studying the engineering texts of the 1920's to the 1950's is fun. Brain draining but fun. The electrical texts need a glass of wine or two for those who are not well taught in the various strangeness that is electricity. I hold a full permit from the UK government in amateur radio and still take a glass of wine ( The UK is considered to have one of the toughest amateur radio tests for intermediate and full license permits).

So the above will help you with the Voltage. Current is another issue completely. A motor is under it's heaviest load in two main conditions. First is when it is holding a position against other motion going on (Cutting a straight line and the non cutting axis holding it's position accurately). The other is when under full dynamic load. That area i will leave to someone who understand that side of the motor better than I. As it happens during cutting but not all the time during cutting and is something that I under the function of better then the physics of.

Limits switches and such should be shielded. Full stop. I have dealt with the nightmare of them not being shielded it is not worth it. Also if possible run at 12 to 24 volts (24V is better, as less chance of stray signal noise affecting the switches and giving a false trigger.

While you are thinking about this realize that your tooling expenses can easily reach to over half the amount you put into the machine and many times much more. Don't cut corners on quality with bits it will affect your finished product.

Power Supplies can be bought or built. RSGB (Radio Society of Great Britain) has a couple of really good books on building them and there are folks here who can help as well as well as diagrams on some of the build threads. While it requires safety and understanding it is NOT as difficult as many think it is. Link to their shop page here: https://rsgbshop.org/acatalog/Online...chnical_6.html

I hope this helps you and anyone else that needs a hand on setting things up. I had a lot of help from folks here and a few other sites and paying it forward is the best I can do.