Official Luthiers Forum!

By the account of things I've been reading on the CNC Zone, there is a stepper driver product being developed by Mariss Freimanis of Gecko Drives that will allow a step motor to perform like a servo motor, but retain the advantages of a step motor. That's right, a step motor that doesn't lose torque at higher speeds, and yet till has lots of it at low speeds. His early tests show performance to be very close and even better than a comparably sized servo. The product is estimated to be at least six months away, due to them applying for a patent for it.

You can read about it in the following threads:

Stepper Servo

Gecko PID step motor servo

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

OK so here's the question you just KNEW some smarty pants would ask.....

Why not just buy servo's??

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

One advantage of steppers is their availability and price in the surplus market compared to servo motors. On Ebay, for example, there are usually tons of steppers but few servos.

Not just that, but servos have to be geared down. Steppers can run direct without gearing.
IF this works, it's a significant breakthrough, but it sounds like it may be built for a single specific motor. Not sure on that yet. A stepper that never loses steps could be a good thing. More torque, higher speeds, less cost.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."