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Motor speed controller with LCD readout showing true speed in mm/min etc how to do th

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apples

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I am wanting to make a thing move at a set speed. The speed must be able to be adjusted.

I have a ballscrew and slide, which I have used a 270oz stepper motor to push this thing along and it worked. This was hooked up to a PC running Mach3 to drive it.

Lugging around a computer is not practical for this application. So I figure a simple motor speed controller will do. Then I can just get a motor and hook it up to 12V and the motor controller and away I go.

Ideally it would be nice if I had a LCD screen where it would show the travel speed. A PWM motor controller from what I have seen so far will give a reading in %, not in mm per min.

Would it be easy to make it display mm/min instead of the %. I would have to workout how many revolutions of the motor shaft move it 1mm etc.

I have used the 270oz stepper and it moved it with enough power. So how do you know what size motor to get that will have the same power?

I guess running it on 12v is easier. Does the motor need to have brushes? Can I uses the stepper motor? (only trying to save money here)

Where can I go to find an equivalent sized motor?

Peter
 
You have a lead screw with a known screw pitch correct? So you know how many threads per mm or cm or whatever. You have a stepper motor with x number of steps per revolution correct and that stepper motor works fine. Why not just build a small stepper motor driver or buy one and use that driven by a small home brew oscillator? If you want or need a readout build or buy a small counter, totalizer or rate meter and convert the pulses to travel. I don't see where another motor is needed.

Ron
 
I have a lead screw that I can work out what the pitch is. Well it is an cheapo XY milling table with only an acme thread. I'd like to use a rolled ballscrew or rack an pinion. But anyway I can figure that part out.

Yes I could build or by a stepper motor driver. Well actually I have one already it is one of the Geckodrives, but I don't know how to get it to work by itself without the computer and the mach3 pulses.

counter, totalizer or rate meter and convert to travel... Looks like I have to google those items to find out what they do. I guess they are just counting type devices?

I suppose an encoder is similar too? How do you get it converted from pulses to units of travel speed? Is this...this would have to be done with a micro controller?

Total noob here.
 
While not a guru on mach3 software I believe the early versions used the old parallel port of a computer and software routines to drive the port. The port then drove some hardware so you end up with something along these lines. Now if that is the case and you were using the parallel port to drive hardware that drove your stepper then it is a matter of developing a circuit to replace the actions of the parallel port. In your case the hardware was a Geckodrives unit. Were you using a parallel port or newer system?

I will be out of town for a week or so but depending on exactly what you have there should be a work around using some of your existing hardware.

Ron
 
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