nice servos from plotter

Hi guys,

Haven't posted in awhile...been busy this summer with other
projects. I just disassembled a HP7550A pen plotter and cut down
the carriage to make a lightweight Y axis for a laser engraver. The
plotter was all of $15 purchased locally, and includes two very nice
pittman servos with encoders. They are pretty small, but actually
have quite a bit of power. Of course there are little forces with a
flying lens laser engraver, but perhaps they could be used to move a
camera for a 3D digitizer or something similar. I am driving them
with a Pixie P100 step/dir to analog converter (www.skyko.com)
hooked to an Advanced Motion Controls 12A8 brush amplifier (a bit
overkill).

Here is a quick video of the carriage moving at 2640IPM running on
Mach3. The carriage actually takes 4000 steps to move 1 inch, but I
have set the step multiply in the Pixie P100 to 4x. With Mach3
outputting a max of around 45khz, this gives me 1000dpi resolution
and the 2640IPM travel speed (fairly fast, no?)

http://www.skyko.com/videos/HP7550A.wmv

-Rick