Re: Stepper controllers

Hi Andrew,

Sorry I have taken so long to get back to you but I have been away for a
couple of weeks.
I am not trying to do any more than persuade the steppers to run
reliably. Using the Pentium I can get about 150 rpm out of the motors
without losing steps but, using the 486, I can only get reliable
stepping at about 50 rpm and then only on selected motors. The 486 I was
using only had a 486/66SX chip in and so I wonder if the problem was due
to the lack of a maths co-processor (as in the DX chip)? I was running
the computer in Windows '95 DOS mode from the hard disk and using 16Mb
of RAM.
I did use the Timeset program to set the initial parameters for MaxNC
and fiddled with the corresponding settings in the Stepster program.
Using the Pentium the motors just fly but I was hoping to be able to use
the 486 so as not to tie up the Pentium which could be better employed
elsewhere.

Ian

Andrew Werby wrote:

> [How fast are you trying to run your steppers? I've run MaxNC's software
> successfully on one of their machines, using an antique 386, and it worked
> fine- no lost steps. Perhaps if you get into higher speed ranges you need a
> faster CPU. But there might be a problem coordinating the speed of the
> motors with the speed of the computer. MaxNC has a program called "Timeset"
> that you need to run when initializing a machine- did you do this?]
>
> Andrew Werby
>
> Andrew Werby - United Artworks
> Sculpture, Jewelry, and Other Art Stuff
> http://unitedartworks.com
>
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--
Best wishes

Ian

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Ian W. Wright LBHI
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