7I77 with 7I96

Hello, I have some nema 34 servo motors & drives on hand. They are dated but still literally new in condition. I have been planning on using a 5I25 and a 7I77 (analog) for control.

I also have some small brushed DC gear motors that have 100 pulse encoders, I want to play around with them too hopefully on the same system. I haven’t been able to easily source some small inexpensive analog amps/drives so I was planning on using the 7I96 Ethernet step and direction off the host PC to Geko 320 drives.

So, step & direction and analog off the same system? Go? No GO?

forum.linuxcnc.org/show-your-stuff/31742...2-euros-for-2-motors
You can use something like that for the small motors, or some arduino 43 amp or 22 amp ones.

Yes I would agree, if you are just driving small low voltage motors with encoder feedback,
use a simple PWM driven H bridge (If you have a 7I96 it can be programmed to generate
PWM on the step/dir pins or the expansion port pins)

Just a heads up the Geckos are not a good choice. There is a thread by thefabricator03 where PCW tried to help him but in the end he gave up on them and returned them for a refund.

Thanks all you guys for weighing in on this and nudging me into looking at h-bridges. For a while now I've been wondering why the RC model guys have been calling brushed & brushless DC motors "step motors" I thought they were confused. In my world Step motors were literally steppers. But I can see now how the h-bridge works and how it is sent step & direction. I guess that system with a brushed DC motor can be called a step motor too. I don't know when this became a thing, somehow I missed the memo though.
The 5I25 arrived yesterday. I'll be bringing together the rest of the system later this week, as time allows

Doug Crews wrote: Thanks all you guys for weighing in on this and nudging me into looking at h-bridges. For a while now I've been wondering why the RC model guys have been calling brushed & brushless DC motors "step motors" I thought they were confused. In my world Step motors were literally steppers. But I can see now how the h-bridge works and how it is sent step & direction. I guess that system with a brushed DC motor can be called a step motor too. I don't know when this became a thing, somehow I missed the memo though.
The 5I25 arrived yesterday. I'll be bringing together the rest of the system later this week, as time allows

I blame the "arduino" bunch for that!
Technically, two DC brushed drives make a single 2 phase stepper drive.