Well guys and gals, I just got back from SEFF and FEDEX had left a package with my neighbor while I was out of town. It was the smooth stepper that I ordered just a few days before leaving.

I had ordered it from CNC4PC for a few dollars more because they had them in stock vs getting on a wait list.

I hooked it up and aside from a bit of a misunderstanding on my part about how to configure EStop, it was up and running in no time.

I have been using the parallel port on a 2.8Ghz Desktop PC to run my MK1.5 belt driven 1200 ipm Phlatprinter and have destroyed a couple of sheets of foam because my X axis would intermittently stall on a rapid move from part to part at the 1200 ipm run.

Just holding the X axis in continueous fast mode would eventually result in the X axis stalling so I purchased the smooth stepper in an attempt to aleviate this situation, which it did a supurb job.

No more stalls and I can hear a difference just listening to all three axis running. It is SMOOTH as silk! I cutout a SouthernEagle which took 2 sheets of 3mm foam cut with a 1/32" bit and the curves in the feathers were simply wonderful. It looked like the foam had been cut with a laser and it was incredibly accurate.

Not that my parallel port cutting was bad mind you, but just listening to the machine cut these two sheets out compared to what I have grown accustomed to hearing I could tell that it just sounded and looked smoother. It always seemed a bit jerky before but the motion appeared to be more fluid to use a word to describe it.

I paid $165 plus $3 for a ribbon cable and connector plus shipping and it was worth every penny.

The smooth stepper has been discussed as an alternative to the parallel printer port for use on laptops, but I gotta tell you, the highly accurate step pulses produced by this board make it a great addition to a desktop machine as well.

I am very satisfied with the improved performance gained by adding the smooth stepper to my system.

I should also mention that I removed the penny mod from my Y axis rods and installed the Delrin bushings that Eric (dbtoutfit) makes. No doubt this too contributed to the overall improved performance I am now seeing in my Phlatprinter.

The 166 oz/in stepper on the Z axis brought my Z axis IPM up to 42ipm which also moves the cutting along a little quicker now.

Thanks to everyone here in this forum whose ideas and contributions have helped to make the Phlatprinter such a wonderful tool.

 

Flash (and anyone else running a SmoothStepper), there is a great new doc written by Jeff Birt (a very knowledgeable user and pseudo Admin over at the Warp9 forum website), talking about connecting and configuring your SmoothStepper for running with Mach. It's at http://soigeneris.com/Documents/Install ... tepper.pdf

 

Thanks Dennis, I will check it out. I stopped using my smooth stepper when I switched over to the Gecko controller. I haven't had any of the problems I used to have with the Easy CNC controller so I just never took the time to configure the smooth stepper for use with Geckos interface.