Its been about 10 years since I converted my Bridgeport type mill to CNC and its time to upgrade the steppers I fitted Bridgeport interact 2 motors running of 8 amp drives from arc euro trade here in the uk
I've been having a x axis problem of dropping steps as the machine gets warm after about an hour of running replacing x drive sorted the problem but have noticed the x motor is hotter even when running off the same power supply
I'm swopping the motor out for one I have in stock nema 34 just over 1000 ounce holding force just as an experiment do i realy need micro stepping 3 to 1 ratio belt drive 5mm pitch
200 steps x 3 = 600
5mm / 600 =.0083 mm resolution which seems fine to me so is there any benefit to micro-stepping . I don't need the speed that the routers do typical cutting feed rate is 400mm per minute old motors were 600mm rapids would like 1000mm which acording to my calcs would be 600 rpm at motor
all feeds ball screws
if all is successful then I plan to buy steppers with encoders as then if it drops steps the drive will fault and stop the program
altough this is part time for me its paid work and some of the conversion plates I make can be 20+ machine-hours so the encoded drives seem like a good idea
Thanks for looking