Application Notes and Manuals

This is a collection of useful files. Each file is labeled with a brief
explanation of what the file contains. If you spoke to technical support
and they referenced a file, chances are it is here.

Electromechanical E-Stop

This is to quickly bring your stepper or servo motors to a stop during an emergency without damaging the motor controls. It is shown integrated with an unregulated power supply, but any kind of power supply will work.

G320 Test Points (REV 6 and newer)

This is a drawing depicting the location of the new test points on the G320 REV 6 and newer servo drives. If you have a G340, the test points are the same as listed above.

G540 Heatsink Test Results

These are the results of running tests of various heatsink options with the G540 at full load. A G540 was tested with no heatsink, a 12VDC fan, and a CPU heatsink attached with four 3.5A motors running.

G540 Initial Setup Guide

This is a guide that will help you setup your G540 quickly.

G540 XML File

This is the XML file you need for Mach3 and has everything for the REV3 G540 preset. Save the file and open it in Mach3 using the Mach3 Loader.

FAQ

This is a collection of frequently asked questions. These are questions that have been asked over the years, and it is a constantly updated guide. This contains a general, stepper, servo, and useful formulas sections.

Geckodrive Manuals

STEPPER MANUALS

    G201 REV 16
    G202 REV 16
    G203V REV 7
    G203V-Vacuum REV 6
    G210 REV 16
    G212 REV 15
    G250 REV 4
    G251 REV 9

    G540 REV 1 - Use this manual only if you have one of the first G540s purchased between August - November, 2008. The X, Y, Z, and A axes are reversed on the pinout compared to the new revisions.
    G540 REV 3
    G540 REV 4 - For all G540s sold after November 1, 2009

SERVO MANUALS

G320 REV 7

G320X REV 6

G340 REV 7

OTHER MANUALS

G100 Motion Controller Installation Files

Heatsinking Your Drives

This shows you how to properly heatsink a drive. Drives should be heatsinked if they are running over 3.5A or they could encounter heating problems.

HEDS Optical Encoder Modification

This is a guide on modifying your HEDS optical encoder to run with the G320, G340 and G320X.

Opto-Isolator Interface

This is a schematic describing how to hook up an opto-isolator.

Power Supply Schematic

This details how a power supply should operate. It details the transformer, bridge rectifier, and filter capacitor positions.

Reducing RF Interference

This is a three step process for reducing RF noise from your drive. It is meant for those with noise-sensitive applications and will not improve performance in a non-sensitive environment.

Returned Energy Dump

This circuit protects servo and stepper drives from damage during periods of energy return when operating near the maximum rated voltage. For diode D1 in the schematic use a 10A01 diode or one with comparable specifications. The current rating on the diode must be equal to or greater than the current on the power supply.

Running Your G203V With a Current Source Output PLC

This explains how to hook up your G203V to a PLC. It contains a diagram and the formula for determining optimal resistor size.

Servo E-Stop Energy Dump

This is a circuit diagram of how to build your own servo E-stop energy dump.

Servo Troubleshooting Guide

This is a question and answer tree designed to diagnose and solve most problems that will effect a servo system.

Star Wiring vs. Daisy Chaining

This shows how to hook up your power supply to a Geckodrive product if you are using more than one drive.

Step and Direction Tester

This is a circuit diagram for testing your step and direction signal.

Step Motor Basics Guide

This is our "Step Motor Basics Guide", which will describe the function of step motors as well as how to wire a 4, 6, or 8 wire motor to one of our drives. It tells you everything that you need to know about steppers to use one of our drives, and is a very useful tool for a beginner or an experienced user.

Stepper Wiring Diagram

This shows you how to wire up a stepper correctly. It is an easy to understand picture, and shows where to wire the power supply, motor, signal wires, and current set resistor.