Re: Lowering Gecko Voltage

Gary,
How about series resistors on either side of the piezo motor, and
maybe a R in parallel with the motor too. Say... run the Gecko at
~30vdc and use 3 5ohm 10Watt in series, with the motor in parallel
with the center 5ohm R. ( might need to play with the R values.)

You need to find out if the motor is usable with a PWM drive,
otherwise you'll need to do some filtering to smooth the drive pulses
to an averaging DC. Similar to what is done in a Class D amplifier.

This piezo electric linear motor has an encoder connected to provide
feedback? Thats req'd.

Just my pennies worth...
-Lee

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., "garyswindell" <gds@m...> wrote:
> I need a controller for a piezo electric linear motor. The
> electronics for this device want a +- 10V control signal. I would
> really like to use a Gecko 320 for this but it has a minimum
voltage
> of 18V.
>
> I was considering something like a zener diode on the output of the
> gecko to clamp the voltage. Is that a crazy idea?
>
> BTW the current draw for this motor is less than 1 amp.