Need help on MAXNC and EDM almost completed

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this group and I'm really happy to join it.

Here's my little story:

I'm living in Quebec, Canada and I decided few years ago to modify my milling to CNC. After looking for an afordable kit I decided to order a MAXNC DLX kit complete with the software, 3 axis driver and steppers wich I paid 600 USD. I modified my milling to fit the steppers but they didn't provide enough torque to move the heavy milling table (8"x30"). I don't need to say I was disapointed...

So I decided to buy larger steppers (500 oz), thinking that the driver would be OK. I was wrong, the MAXNC driver was an unipolar with a maximum current of about 1 amp. It was not even able to drive the steppers unloaded.

So I decided to replace the switching transistors of the driver kit with high current MOSFET transistors and use an external power supply to feed the higher current to these new steppers. It worked but I wasn't satisfied of the real torque produced by the motors. I didn't measure it but I figure they were producing about 50% of their capacities.

I dicided finally to completely replace the MAXNC unipolar driver with 3 bipolar, 5 amps drivers from CAMTRONICS. I built the drivers and completed the installation of the power supply and motors and now I can say I have a good setup.

The only problem is that these new drivers are using the satandard STEP and DIR signals for each motor. The MAXNC software I got with my first kit was a phase driven version (each phase of each motor is directly activated by a pin of the computer serial port).

I was expecting MAXNC to replace at no cost, or reduced cost, my phase driven version (each phase of each motor is directly activated by a pin of the computer serial port) by the step and direction version but they said NO. I would have to buy a new software again !!!

I feel it's not fair, if some of this group feel like me and wish to help me I would be pleased to share my current software with someone who owns the step and dir version.

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I'm currently building an EDM, the electronic part is complete and I should have completed the mecanical part within a week or two. I buit it from the many articles of Robert A. Washburn of the Strictly I.C. magazine. These articles were from sept. 93 to nov. 96 with many corections and modifications. I must tell you that I's not been easy to complete this circuit. I had to make few modifications to make it work. If anyone started this project but never ended it because it didn't work I would be happy to help.

Regards,

Dany





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