Quote
drmaestro
Hi,
I'd like to ask a question about steppers. As you know, you can feel the steps, if you turn the shaft manually. You aiso feel the steps when the stepper is connected to your carriage and you move the carriage manually. If you can feel it, that means that it introduces some kind of vibration to the carriage and this can influence print quality. Is there a smoother alternative to stepper motors?
Thanks
What you are referring to is detent torque. It doesn't introduce a significant vibration because the torque due to current is much greater. To get smoother movement you need two things:
1. High microstepping, at least 64x.
2. Firmware that generates step pulses at accurate times instead of using the Bresenham approximation. Most 32-bit firmwares generate step pulses accurately, and most 8-bit firmwares don't.
The Duet WiFi and Duet Ethernet electronics that I co-designed meets both requirements.
Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod
Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].