Hello Which driver to choose I built cnc, nema 23, 100cm / 100cm, on straps in the future maybe update to screws And the question is which black box to choose? Should I build my own with m542 and ardiuno nano drivers? I am asking for advice, what to choose, which is better?
Hi Bober, with the BlackBox, the setup and wiring is very simple, and will suffice for power needed in most Openbuild size machines. M542 drivers (not actuators) will drive slightly bigger motors (more current) and at higher voltage than a Black box. With that you will need to wire the drives (4 of them for most 3 axis machines) to a controller such as an arduino or some other type (almost endless choices) so it comes down to complexity and ease of construction. Another great thing about the BB is the support you will find here and the great service from the Openbuild Part Store. Cheers Gary
The BlackBox is "plug and play" and is very easy to wire up. With the separate M542 drivers and an Arduino you have to wire everything else up yourself. If you want noise filtering to prevent false limit switch tripping, you would need to do that yourself as well. Where I am located, four of the M542 drivers are $38.99 per driver and a genuine Arduino is bout $22.00. So with shipping it is about $180. On my large CNC mill I built before the BlackBox came out, I used an arduino, 4 of the DQ542MA drivers, and I built my own EMI noise filtering. It works great but took a lot of time to get everything hooked up right and I had to buy an enclosure which was about another $20. I also purchased an Arduino screw shield for another $10 to make it easier to hook everything up. Then I purchase some panel mount plugs (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G9KMKJ4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1&fpw=alm) to hook everthing up through the enclosure. With my new CNC lathe which uses the NEMA 23 High Torque stepper motors from OpenBuilds, I chose to save a bit of money and a lot of time and went with the BlackBox. It took about 5-10 minutes to get it up and running. It ook no additional enclosure, connectors, or any other components. So, it all depends on what you want to do with your time and money. Both systems work great.
