Testing the new G203 Vampires on a mill drill

Yesterday I installed my 3 axis control box using the new G203 on my
mill drill. The mill drill has been retrorfitted with ballscrews and
my 452 oz in stepper motors. The ballscrews are a bit on the stiff
side to turn by finger because I have the antibacklash set too
tight. In spite of that and the 3/1 ratio timing belt drive I was
able to run the Roadrunner.tap file at full speed. It was awesome to
see the G203's respond to Mach3 commands brilliantly. I took some
video of the machine running but it will be a few days before I can
post it on my web site. The G203's never got warm. The motors seemed
to run cooler than normal but up here in Fugus Corner my shop was
only 50F and I think the motor mounts acted as a heatsink keeping
them cooler than normal. I ran the roadrunner file numerous times
with a lost step.
Then I swapped out the 452 oz in motors for the 762 oz in motors
and the G203's ran them perfectly with great speed and power. I
stopped the machine so I could watch the Nextel cup race but left
the G203's on with the winding engaged. They were stone cold after
2.5 hours.
After the race I ran the other G code files that do circles
watching for any sign of stepper motor resonance problems. There
were none!I ran it some more but I broke a tack weld on my Y axis
ballnut assembly and had to shuck the machine down. I would say that
Mariss did a terrific job with these drives. Tomorrow I will set up
some high current motors that draw 9A and see how the Vampires
respond.

Dan Mauch
Camtronics Inc
www.camtronics-cnc.com
low cost stepper and servo motors.
Assembled and tested G201,203,G210,G320 and G340 drive systems.