# Step motor on a round table



## ksor (Mar 6, 2008)

I'm trying to make an "electronic" round table with a step motor controlled from a C# program in a pc.

Should I have some "feed back" from the table to be sure it has turned what the program exspects 

OR

should I just have a very strong step motor without "feed back" ?

Best regards
KSor, Denmark
 ???


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## DICKEYBIRD (Mar 6, 2008)

I'm no CNC expert but I think the decision whether or not to use a stepper motor vs stepper/encoder or servo/encoder depends on what the intended use is.

If it's to be simply a precision positioning device, a stepper would be fine. If you're going to be machining with heavy cuts and/or high speeds, an encoder system is needed.

However, there are many, many CNC lathes & mills that do relatively heavy work with stepper motors only. They do have powerful motors and large power supplies to go with them. The CNCZone website has a lot of these kinds of discussions.


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## ksor (Mar 6, 2008)

Thanks !

KSor, Denmark


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## sparky961 (Jun 12, 2008)

I've been surprised at the amount of holding torque that my stepper motors have, as well as the ability of the control not to miss steps.

Originally, I thought I'd need to use some sort of feedback such as optical encoders. Since using my machine though, I've found that the positioning of the steppers is the least of my problems! I have much bigger issues on my machine with backlash.

My advise: go with the biggest steppers that you can afford and only slightly larger than practical for the application. Later on, you can add the position feedback to convert from "open loop" operation to "closed loop" if you find you're needing it.

Also, I'm curious as to why you'd bother writing your own program when there are plenty out there that will do a more than adequate job of it.

-Brian


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## kvom (Jun 12, 2008)

> Also, I'm curious as to why you'd bother writing your own program when there are plenty out there that will do a more than adequate job of it.


Probably for the same reason people here build things instead of buying :


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