Recommendations on next step.

Cutter07 wrote:

Tommylight how do you find the Stepper Motors at 3000 rpm?  Is there much vibration?  I notice that I have a lot of vibration with the current steppers .  

Again thanks for your times. 

You don't buy steppers or drives capable of 3000 rpm from steppers on line and you don't run those speeds with a parallel port and software step generation.

Hardware stepgen from Mesa or pico systems is needed.
Higher quality drives are desirable
Industrial quality motors are desirable
Higher voltage is desirable.

On that power supply, near the green LED there is a small pot, turn that to up the voltage to wherever it can go, then test the motor for speed.
Those usually go to 55V and that should give you a nice boost in speed, but nothing earth shattering.
The drive price is not OK, i have bough DM860 from China for 89$ a piece.
The motors are high inductance at 8mH, hence the speed is very limited.
Vibrations can be greatly reduced by using microstepping in the drives, but parallel port is the limiting factor then.

Thanks Rod for the time to reply.  

Given that this project is still in the prototype development phase, what would you recommend for Steppers and drives / power supply.  I understand that's this is an open ended question, as it would depend on budget, but what would be a solid choice to ensure good performance up to 180 inch per min.  

Also are there benefits to steppers over Servos in this situation?  

Sorry I have so may questions.  I managed to achieve the basics on the prototype machine through trial and error, but it's getting the point where my knowledge is stretched.  

Kind Regards. 

Probably the best improvement would be to adopt a mesa card as you are struggling to get the speeds you want.
You are meant to be stretched using Linuxcnc
I've been working with ethercat drives and its a whole new ball game!

Tommy and I both use Italian made Lam Technologies drivers and industrial quality drives from Lam, Sanyo Denki, Motion King and Moon. But the costs are exponentially higher.You probably don't need to go there yet!

Your new power supplies are good for 80 volts so upgrading to 60-75 volts would be worthwhile.. 

I'll let others answer your remaining questions

Did you test upping the voltage on the power supply?

No not yet. I have had a quick look and can see where I have to do it, but I have to get some work done around the house first. I have it planned for an afternoon job.