RE: EMC setup

[Dan Falck <dfalck-at-sprynet.com>]

I have several machines running steppers and the faster the computer the 
better.  But, I do have an old packard bell p100 that engraves reliably all 
day long.  It will do 25 ipm with 5 tpi ballscrews and a 2:1 belt ratio.
I have an AMD k6 550 that runs a router at 150 ipm  but also has direct 
drive and about 5 tpi ballscrews (about because it's metric).
My AMDk6 233 runs Servo Lite drives at about 50 ipm with 2:1 belt drive and 
5 tpi ballscrews.  There are a lot of mechanical gremlins in my machines ( 
I didn't preload the bearings right and the bearings are cheap).  So, your 
mileage may vary.

Thanks,
Dan


At 09:59 AM 12/5/00 -0500, you wrote:

>Ian,
>
>A P100 does not have enough horsepower to drive steppers very well. Are you
>using Freqmod or Steppermod? The problem is worse with Freqmod, but
>Steppermod has more of a problem with irregular timing. Either way you need
>to adjust the parameters to get the pulse frequency increased (shorter
>period or cycle_time depending).
>
>With a P100 and steppers my guess is the best you will get is relatively
>slow movement without getting stalling on the motors.
>
>Tim
>[Denver, CO]
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm sure I should know this, but can someone enlighten me on
> > setting up EMC
> > to run steppers please?
> >
> > The difficulty I'm having is in controlling the speed of the motors. I
> > assume that INPUT_SCALE is the parameter to change to set the
> > motor rotation
> > to match the gearing/screw set up so that an input of 1 inch moves the
> > machine 1 inch. However, this also seems to affect the speed of the motors
> > and, outside a certain band of values in this parameter, a couple of the
> > motors I have get very rough in operation and slow right down. Needless to
> > say, this lumpiness is in the band of values I need to get the proper
> > translation.
> > Is there another setting I should be changing to improve the motors'
> > performance?
> >
> > I'm using steppermod on a RH5.2 install with the March 200
> > release of EMC (I
> > don't seem to be able to get freqmod working yet on this release)
> > on a P100
> > machine which seems to work OK otherwise - i.e. it seemed to operate a
> > previous experimental setup of EMC and motors.
> >
> > Ian
> > --
> > Ian W. Wright
> > Sheffield  UK
> > www.iw63.freeserve.co.uk
> >