If you need speed for your plasma cutter you can go for a bigger pulley + lowering the microstepping. I find that lowering the microstepping has a huge effect on both top speed and torque, plus it doen’t matter much precision wise, especially with plasma cutting which is an inherently imprecise process.
I suggest you to go for 1/8 or even 1/4 step, and maybe even try lower just for the sake of experiment. You can go for 20 teeth pulleys at least, possibly even higher. Also, try to keep the gantry mass at the bare minimum as well as remove any kind of strain coming from the torch wire, so that you get good accelerations without risk of skipping steps.
The only real downside will be noise and possible vibrations coming from the motors, but here again it doesn’t really matter, the torch makes a lot of noise while blasting air so you won’t be able to hear the motors anyway.
Ya bigger pulled in order, got 35-60t I never rly looked at the curves… I am asking alit of rpm at 6000mm min. I may have wasted alit of time lol I well a learning exp. I do prefer the belts on the underside though, I have cut them before from the side loading material
Looking at them there’s so many out there and I can’t make heads or tails on what makes a good one so I may just go to stepperonline. It seems odd to add a $25 driver to a $10 stepper motor but I guess if I upgrade the motor down the road I won’t need a new driver.
Yes, the DM860N is on sale for about the same price as the DM542T but their minimum amperage is 2.6 which is way to high for the lowrider.
It’s probably a bad idea for us to be going down this road, shouldn’t have put the idea in your head since I’m not educated enough about them to give you much more advice. It’s overkill for these steppers. Whatever you get you’ll have to dial the current way back so you don’t melt the pla motor mounts. Sorry, my head is in another project at the moment.
Thanks for the advice! These so far have been more confusing to figure out with so many options. I like these though, I can get them for $17.99 CDN each so it saves me probably close to $100 CDN once you figure in exchange, tax and shipping.
The price is a bit reflective of the popularity though. Some drivers are very capable, and they are in a ton of 3D printers, so the price is very cheap. The motors, for example, are very cheap, but that’s because they are exactly the same in the quantity millions. They are also super simple (a shaft, a case, magnets and wires) and they never break.
I would also compare that to something like the skr board with TMC2209 drivers and a 24V PSU. I suspect you can get a ton of torque and plenty of speed out of something like that.
Kyle, thanks for the instructions above. I tried Ubuntu but was having a number of challenges due to dependencies. I then went the Mint route and it was so much easier and straight forward. I now have a linuxcnc kernel on mint and an Ubuntu laptop for the CAD side. Now I have to wait until Christmas and then I can really get going. Excited!
I didn’t do a write up on how I cobbled together my mint and linuxcnc installation because I just figured it was out of the scope of the thread. I figure the official Debian + linuxcnc ISO is probably the most straight forward way to get started for a beginner. But if you search around in the linuxcnc forums some one has relatively recently put together a custom Linux Mint ISO with linuxcnc 2.8 and the realtime kernel preinstalled. But it sounds like you’ve already got it handled!
Cad I’m leaning towards onshape. I’ve done some of the tutorials and its pretty relatable to other packages I’ve used. It looks easy to export the dxf off of the faces to import to linuxcnc. I’d rather Autocad but its not free. If I can make some money at this then perhaps I’ll buy some licensing but for now I’m working towards a low cost
POC.
Linuxcnc doesn’t do cam I’m afraid. For plasma sheetcam is pretty popular. For artsy stuff Inkscape has a free gcode extension that works for some people too.
Interesting. Had a quick look at sheetcam and will download it to see if I can get it installed. Is it best on the CAD laptop or the PC where linuxcnc is?
Personal preference I guess. Ideally I’d like for my linuxcnc machine to be dedicated to linuxcnc. But sometimes it would be nice to tweak some cam settings without having to go to a different computer.
That’s a good idea but wont work in my case. We built a new shop way out in the ‘back yard’ and the linuxcnc computer doesn’t get wifi. And using my phone as a hot spot is sketchy.
Okay, I’m officially started on my build. I’m building a 4x4 router setup first and then I’ll move forward and modify for the plasma setup or build a second one for Plasma.
I have the lowrider 2 kit that comes with a 12v 6a power supply that I’m going to use instead of the 24v. I have to buy the 5v power supply for the Mesa 7i96 yet.
I also didn’t get the stop limit switches when I did the purchase. Would this kit work off of ebay?
Next I notice that the limit switches in your diagram feed off the 24v (12v in my case) and second wire feeds back to the Mesa 7i96 card. Is there any problem that it’s 12/24v going back to the 5v controller?
I’m going to use Cat5 ethernet for the initial wiring that’s 24awg and I’m going to double up and use the pairs to be safe. Trying to do this without buying much more at least until I can show the value better. I have a 500ft spool of cat5 cable laying around…
As usual your insights are appreciated.
Thanks,
Trevor.
Those look like the same switches I have, to be honest I’ve only set one up as a float switch and it works just fine. I haven’t gotten around to the rest yet.
The logic for the 7i96 is 5v. However the inputs are actually isolated from the logic with transistors (?? I think). Anyway, you supply your own separate power to the inputs and outputs so your 12v is good. The 24v, or 12v in your case, will help with noise immunity.
Okay, here’s my next “issue”… How does one go from the TB6600 to the steppers? I have A+, A-, B+, and B- then on the stepper side I have Red, Green, Yellow, Blue. Unfortunately there’s no documentation that I know of for these steppers from V1 in the lowrider kit and it’s assumed that you’re using their cables which I’m not.
