Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
Ok well, 3 phase will actually be better for a photo rig because often 3ph motor as a lower step angle, often 1.2 deg rather than 1.8Deg of a standard stepper so give a smoother action, but this will depend on the motor. Thou in any case 3ph is smoother and are stronger motors in general because of the extra phases so will always be better than 2ph stepper in this environment as you can crank up the micro-stepping on the drives which helps to smooth the action of the motors.

But to be honest I'm wondering why your going with a stepper system, and a cheap one at that, on such a high-end motion control rig.?
DC or AC servo will be much much smoother and the motion controller is capable of 500Khz so will easily handle higher resolution encoders which is what gives you the smoothness and resolution.
Obviously they are more expensive but I would have thought a price worth paying if you are prepared to go high-end on the controller, It's a little like having a Ferrari engine and fitting skinny little tyres with weedy brakes.!!
Thanks for the reply. So would it be best to simply grab that alternate driver, the 3DM2283T? Will it all hook up ok with what I have?

In terms of why that motor, it came down to budget. My budget for this project has gone up and up and it's now around £4k, which includes all the other bits and pieces I need for building the camera rig, control box, cables etc. I just can't afford more right now, COVID has been tough for business and I've been selling all the unused kit I can get my hands on to afford this.

I'm hoping this current build will at least outperform most consumer motion control units; Edelkrone, eMotimo, Rhino etc. Then in the future I'll upgrade to other parts and improve it further.

I was originally going to go with Dragonframe (didn't know any better) but realised that to get live motion I needed their very expensive controller. That then led me to Mantis and Gerald, who makes the controller and software, he's been really kind in advising me what to get. It's all been a balancing act with budget as I'm sure you can imagine.

I take it I can upgrade the motors down the line? Would better motors work ok with the drivers I've already got? Are these the sort of thing you mean:

https://www.omc-stepperonline.com/servo-stepper-motor/

Thanks again.

Max