I see a lot of people using 262oz. stepper motors as an upgrade on the forums. I don’t think I’ve ever seen (or even heard mentioned) about the 282oz. stepper motor. Is there any reason why, or is it just personal preference?
Do you have your numbers right?
Many people here use the 269 oz.in stepper (StepperOnline 23HS30-2804S) $20.50) and Inventables has a 262 oz.in motor (25311-03 $49.00).
Where did you see a 282 oz.in motor?
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I’ve seen them several places. From your response it sounds like maybe they’re a new size.
Here are some examples;
http://www.veloxcnc.com/proddetail.asp?prod=KL23H276-30-4A
https://www.amazon.com/PCS-Nema23-Stepper-Motors-KL23H276-30-8A/dp/B007QMHP1M
The one above from Amazon is a 8 wire version, but I’ve seen 4 wire versions too.
Maybe not new, but they are 3 amps/phase which the gShield could not deliver. Now that the X-controller is available they are certainly in the range that it can handle.
I’m not sure that a 5 percent increase in torque is worth a 22 percent (or more) increase in cost.
Should work fine on the X-carve (like the 269 oz.in they are 76mm long so they don’t fit the Z-axis in the standard configuration).
Several people here have convinced me that the best way to go is with the Gecko G540 driver, so 3 amps shouldn’t be an issue. I think I’ll order a 282 to test out.
http://www.geckodrive.com/geckodrive-step-motor-drives/g540.html
You just made my day Bill 
No problem Bill. How do you like your G540? What are you using to cool it, heatsink? Fan?
Mine is in an aluminum case with the powersupply and a fan for circulation, nothing elaborate and it runs fine in the Georgia heat. I have yet to have any heat related issues…or any issues for that matter 
What size fan are you running?
Standard 60mm fan…truly nothing special.
Excellant, thanks guys!
Cool thread…
Stepper motors are complicated little beasts. Be sure to consider all specifications when you choose them. The torque ratings published might be under very different conditions than what you are using.
Inductance is an important factor to consider. If a motor has higher inductance and higher torque it may actually perform worse in many situations. High inductance motors like higher voltages.
Many times you can find the speed torque curves for motors. Those are helpful to compare motors, but be sure to also compare the conditions used to generate the curves.
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I always thought that the torque was directly related to the motors length, but both the 269 and the 282 are the same exact length (76mm) so I don’t see how the 282 has more torque, unless the inside windings are beefier. Data sheet drawings for both motors look the same, so something inside the motor must be different.
It is hard to say. Some of the longer motors use 2 stacked windings per coil. These could be connected in different ways. They could use more turns, thicker wire, etc. Do you have the speed/torque curves for those motors?
BTW: Here is a good basic blog post on stepper motors.
That blog post is very informative.
Unfortunately, it’s also a disconnect from what Customer Success was telling me concerning the Xcontroller power supply voltage levels and stepper motors.
These are direct quotes from an exchange with Customer Success that I recently had:
“A higher voltage supply will offer no advantage over the standard PSU and will damage the electronics.”
“So long as the power supply can provide enough current, there isn’t too much a difference in performance.”
Now the blog post is clearly saying that the higher voltage supplies do in fact get better performance:
“You will actually get better performance by running at a higher voltage than the rated voltage”
“Eventually the power will fall low enough that the motor cannot even spin itself. Higher voltages help with this, so you can get higher speed with higher voltages.”
So which is correct? Is the Xcontroller the exception to the fundamental basics of stepper motor operation? It’s understandable if the Xcontroller can’t handle higher voltages due to design limitations, but to contradict the basics of stepper operation and say that theres no benefit seems to be inaccurate to me.
My original question to Customer Success was concerning changing the default PSU out with a higher voltage PSU so that the steppers could operate faster with more torque. I was looking at potentially swapping the PSU out with a 36V (http://www.omc-stepperonline.com/switching-power-supply-400w-36v-11a-for-cnc-router-kits-115v230v-s40036-p-387.html) supply.
I looked at some of the component spec sheets (the main ones attached to the 24V DC that I could see) used on the Xcontroller and there is a 42V max input limit for both the stepper driver and the 5V regulator used. The fan may be affected as well but that could be an easy fix.
That doesn’t sound right at all. See graph below;
The X-Controller was not part of the original discussion.
The X-Controller is designed for the power supply it comes with. We do not support hacking it. There are issues with cooling and downstream circuits in addition to the motor drivers. There are margins on the 24V, but we don’t support people pushing those margins.
Sorry I brought the Xcontroller into this. Since the Xcontroller is the latest and greatest from Inventables and people may start upgrading motors, which may lead to wanting more performance by upping the voltage, and I just recently had a conversation with the CS team, to me it seemed logical to ask about it.
As for the voltage capability, I get that. You design for a specific set of criteria, margins, etc and exceeding those parameters can cause unknown issue. No problem with that at all.
I guess my issue was being told that higher voltage would not provide better performance at all, knowing that wasn’t accurate. Just wanted to run it by you, since I believe you had a pretty big part in the Xcontroller design and this topic happened to come up.
Thanks.
Is there anything to gain from upgrading stepper motors without a z axis modification? What do you gain from this?