Re: bridgeport interact II mach, pmdx, gecko tuning

Hi Chuck,
 
The selection of even or odd pin numbers for the interface just needs to match
the available hardware. It does not influence the performance. If you are
using a PMDX-133 or PMDX-134 motherboard for the G203V drivers, then you must
use odd numbered pins for the step signals because that is how they are wired
to the drives. If you are using discrete wiring, then you can use any pins
that you like as long as the Mach3 configuration and the wiring match.
 
The Geckodrive recommendation for motor drivers supply voltage is:
 
32 times the square root of the motor coil inductance
 
This calculates to about 48 VDC for your motors. I would think that 60 volts
would be OK, but pushing it to near 80 volts may result in false errors being
reported.
 
Your speed of 80 IPM for a stepper based Bridgeport is reasonable. Lubrication
and correct adjustment of the gibs will have a big influence on the speeds that
you can obtain. Remember that a little less rapid speed costs a lot less than
having to remake a trashed part.
 
Doing lots of production drilling with a knee driven Z axis is not going to be fast
and may cause wear on the Z axis ways. If you still have a manual quill capability,
you may find that running the machine as 2 axis with pauses for manual drilling
to be quite useful as the human operator can "feel" how fast to drill, and then
"cycle start" when done with each hole.
 
Regards,
Steve Stallings
www.PMDX.com