Également disponible en Français
Également disponible en Français |
Description:
The Linistepper is a well reviewed, open source controller /
driver for small to medium sized 5, 6 or
8 wire unipolar (not 4 wire bi-polar) stepper motors. The Linistepper combines
ultra smooth, low noise, old school linear microstepping with modern
active current regulation for faster response. The kit is easy to build,
hard to damage, and easy (and cheap) to repair. Fully documented: how it
works, how to use it, how to troubleshoot problems and get your motors running!
Features:
Documentation
These well made kits are easy to assemble with your soldering iron. Hard to break, easy to repair (new drive transistor set less than $2), smooth and cheap! If you are driving up to 3 amps on low cost unipolar steppers, nothing beats a Linistepper.
Questions? Check the FAQ!
For medium small, high inductance (lower amperage, higher voltage), unipolar motors, Linisteppers are the absolute best value. There are other drivers for other uses:
| Driver | Maximums |
Motors | Pros | Cons | ||
| Amps | Volts | Power | ||||
| Linistepper | 1 or 2, 3 max | 36 | <75 | 5, 6 or 8 wire Unipolar |
Ultra smooth, quiet, low noise, low mid band resonance, motor stays cool, cheap to repair | Limited power, driver heat |
| SLAm | 2 to 3 | 36 | 108 | 5, 6 or 8 wire Unipolar |
Stable, easy to build, small heatsink, tough | Resonance, motor heat/noise |
| THB6064 | up to 4 | 50 | 200 | 4, 6 or 8 wire Bipolar | Powerful, most motors (4, 6 or 8 wires), small heatsink, very tough | Some resonance, motor heat/noise |
| GeckoDrive.com (listed for compairison only) |
3.5-7 | 50-80 | 175-560 | Bipolar | Freaking magic | Cost $80-$166 per axis. |
Mariss Freimanis of geckdrive.com says: "A switching type drive makes sense when the power levels are large. The inefficiency of a linear drive becomes prohibitive at such levels. At 7A and 80V, a classic linear drive dissipates an unacceptable 560 Watts of heat in the power transistors.
At the other extreme, say 1A and 24V, the complexity of a switching type drive makes less sense. Heat dissipation then is a manageable 24 Watts and the simplicity and other advantages of a linear amplifier becomes appealing." ^
"Multiply any drive's rated current by its rated voltage. Divide that number by its price. Those numbers gives you the relative value of any drive; how much performance you get for the money you spend." ^
Although they are excellent drivers, purchasing a set of three Geko G250 ( 3.5A * 50VDC / $81 = 2.16 ) for $243 is still a waste of money if you are driving smaller motors. The Linistepper will cost you $90 for 3 axis plus your time assembling the kit and has a 2A * 35V / $30 = 2.33 "Mariss rating". Geko's are the best drivers in the industry for large bipolar motors at ultra high (>1000 rpm) speeds. If you are running anything up to a couple amps, the Linistepper and your soldering iron will give you close to the same performance (smooth, low resonance, best torque) at half the price with motors you pulled from a printer, fax or copier, or purchased used or on the cheap.
| Each | 3Axis! | |||
| Postal Shipping (in the USA ONLY) |
1 or 2 units, US shipping 416015 |
~or~ | Set of 3, US shipping Just $75 for your 3 axis machine! |
We buy huge quantities: There is just no way anyone can purchase the individual parts to make a few of these kits for less than our kit price! |
| International Shipping (~$15 more) Just about anywhere in the world! |
Also available: Printed Circuit Boards! These are VERY well made boards and are certainly worth the price IF you have a well stocked scrap box to populate them and a PIC programmer. However, you will find our kit price for complete kits is MUCH LESS than the cost of parts and PCBs, AND the PIC comes already programmed! |
USA only! 416026 |
or | |
Can't be made for less! |
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Connect to your PC or stand alone:
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* This are electronics KITs, you need to solder them together.
BTW to all those newbies out there Linisteppers impressed me as a newbie but then they were starting to show their weakness - they were sloooow. At least I thought it's due to linisteppers. Well, I can report that with 24v and laserjet steppers these things are SCREAMING!!! I'm running them nicely at 20revs/sec (albeit 1 minute at a time, until I've sorted out my cooling problems) with my very rough machine that hasn't been executed too precisely or adjusted properly. Before at 12v the motors would stall at the slightest misalignment and 6revs/sec was all I could get out of them reliably. Once all that is ironed-out I'm thinking 30revs/sec (1.75mm lead) would be attainable....
[The Linisteppers] only deficiency, it seems, is the transistor heat. I have a chopper here and a linistepper and they both run at 24v. Linistepper "sounds" sweeter and it seems it runs faster as well before stalling. This is strange as I always thought a chopper would go faster and stall higher up in the rev range.
...
I don't know what I like better, burning my finger on the driver board or burning my finger on the motor. Which do you prefer? P.S. it seems that once I switched to a chopper driver all that heat that used to be on linisteppers just transferred to motors themselves!
...
[ed, at this point, we find out that there was NO heatsink on the linisteppers power transisters]
Since I burned my fingers on a motor that was driven by a chopper (and that motor was actually HOTTER than linisteppers driving other motors) I have decided to stick to linisteppers. It's easier to worry about heat in one place than 3 separate locations. Went down to my local PC shop and they'll have some 2nd hand pentium II coolers with fan in by monday....
Ok, I have re-assembled one of my linis, applied thermal paste, applied isolators to each, mounted the brackets and laid a 12v computer fan on the brackets blowing DOWN through the brackets and onto the lini. The lini transistors are now as cool as ice.
Suggestion: Make a note of the changed capacitor values in the printed instructions.
Request 1: Make a bipolar controller next! (3 or 4 wire) Please!
Request 2: Offer or specify "upgrade kit" with *specific* directions of what to change, for higher amp motors (for people like me who don't know what they're doing).
Compliment: Very professional looking. I'm sure I'll be pleased with the performance, when I finally finish one.
James
Newton replies: I'll do that. {done}
Bipolar controllers are inherently more expensive (4 times the power transistors)
and less attractive in a hobby market.
People who don't know what they are doing should learn but I've been thinking
I should try to write some sort of "expert system" to help that along. {done:
see Tuning for higher power} Thanks and best
of luck.
Hello,Received your kit today (saturdaymorning 9 Nov.) Thank you Verry Much!
Looks verry Proffesional made!
I do not have the time at the moment to build an test it and i don't have the alluminium heatsink at homei have placed the components on the board all fits well i think except C3 holes are 2,54mm wide and should be 5,08mm wide {Ed: Component changes caused that... The leads can be bent to fit for now}
also it would be better to place picture off the caps position on your kitassemble page people look better than they read or place caps + - on the silkscreen off the board {Ed: Done!}
maybe you could give some more info/pictures about the resistors and colors on your kit assemble page maybe a picture with lines outside the picture with describing text off resistors (colors) {Ed: Done!}
think this could help other people making mistakes placing components
verry nice kit
question where do you get this good quality pcb board made?? {Ed: GRIN!}
greetings luberth
netherlands
Comments:
Questions:
My Linistepper is rotating in random directions when pulsed. The voltage to pin 18 of the pic reads about 5.3v for forward, and about .25 for reverse. I think I might have a fried chip, and will swap it out, but is there anything else you can think of that might cause this? Thanks for any help you can offer.
James Newton of MassMind replies: good, I see you checked the voltage AT the pin. Yes, it does sound like a fried chip. Now the question is why? 5.3 volts is a bit high... PIC's aren't supposed to be over 5.5 volts on VDD, and the input shouldn't be more than VDD, so that 5.3 is ok only if VDD is more than 5.3
Interested:
