I have the Xylotex 3 Axis bundle with 269 oz. steppers, about 6 months later I bought a Xylotex single board for my 4th axis, hooked it in with the other and ,bingo I had 4 Axis system.  Used Mach2 and now Mach 3...Had no problems with any of thatnow for 5 years.  All on a HF 47158 Micro Mill.  Ray

I'm not a big fan of the Solsylva machines. There are a lot of build threads for it at CNc Zone, but it seems like most people that build it, go on to build a better second machine. Not sure what your budget is, but the Joes 2006 machine is a much sturdier design. www.joescnc.com

I actually have a Xylotex on my 30"x45" travel router with 250 oz PacSci steppers. With 1/2-8 2start acme screws, I can get ~175ipm rapids, and have taken shallow cuts at up to 150ipm. Still fine tuning and setting it up, so haven't tried heavier cuts yet. With the Gecko G540 and 1/2-10 5 start screws, I've seen people at CNC Zone get 300-400ipm rapid speeds. I bought the Xylotex 5 years ago, when it was pretty much the only low cost option available. It works remarkably well, with one exception. On my router, I got resonance that was so bad the machine was nearly unuseable. I solved it by making dampers for the steppers. The Gecko has resonance compensation built in, so probably wouldn't suffer from the issues I had with the Xylotex.

will mach3 work with that ?

will mach3 work with that ?

With what? mach can run just about any machine.

Quote from: TadMadLad on September 23, 2009, 03:19:33 PM

will mach3 work with that ?

With what? mach can run just about any machine.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-to-build-CNC-Mill-Stepper-Motor-and-Driver-ci/
sorry, my post scrolled up a bit.

would mach3 work with this guys' driver?

I have a Xylotex 4 axis board,  when I go to the motor tuning page in Mach 3 and use the arrows to jog the motors
all they do is make a buzzing/whining noise and depending on how I have the speed and acceleration set might move 1 or 2 degrees;  -- barley enough to be seen  -- .   The correct axis makes noise so I assume the pins are set correctly.  When I reverse the step and direction pins the motors make no noise or movement so I assume that is correct.  The voltage at  Vref is within parameters according to Xylotex.  Any ideas?
silver1 

What are your actual settings ?
Here are a few tips.
 Start slow, use the recommended pulse width and use the proper active state.
Russ

The pulse per inch setting is  22400  I tried down to 8000 and up to 22400  its a 14 tpi screw 200 step motors 1/8 step setting.  They are 4 wire motors and the board takes 4 wires with the wires on the instuctions and the motors color coded. the voltage on the board is 3.85 which is within parameters according to xylotex
the speed  25k
the inches per minute  I varied between 1 and 50  I wanted 20
the acceleration was 2  however I varied this to nearly  0 up to about half way in the middle of the scale
I hooked one of the motors just sitting on the bench  -- no  load.
Thanks silver1

A lot of times unloaded motors on a bench may not run due to resonance. And the Xylotex is already known to suffer from resonance pretty badly. My Xylotex poered router was almost unusable due to resonance, until I added dampers.

According to the Xylotex website, if you're board is version 4.02 or lower, the VREF should NEVER exceed 3.6V. If it's 4.03 or newer, the VREF should NEVER exceed 2.0V. You also need a cooling fan when running near the board's max current ratings. But your VREF is set too high. Set it to deliver 2.0 amps to the motors and see if it works better? Also, try putting a load on the motor.

Check the active state of the step and dir signals. Probably should be LOW.
And try the pulse widths at 4.
Vary the jog speed to get away from range of resonance.
Keep in touch,
Russ