WELL I got all three axis working tonight! @ThantiK came by and gave me a hand in getting this stuff running, and together we finished wiring things up and started doing some testing. A few hiccups in Marlin and with the RUMBA board, but nothing we couldn’t solve.
Here it is, driving around like a printer should! The nozzle is just kinda flopping around in there as a placeholder; I’m going to get an extruder printed tonight so that I can get this thing fired up and printing this weekend! Can’t wait to see it print!
Both come form Automation Technologies Inc (they resell Geckodrive) and the motor was $129, the G320x was $119. The encoder is a HEDM-5600 B06, that was about $40
Wow, that’s a pretty penny for one axis, especially when compared to the typical Pololu driver and Nema 17 motor.
I do see the advantages of a servo (with feedback) over a stepper (without feedback) for heavy and fast axis - even with two motors and drivers, i can only get my 400x200mm bed to work at ~250mm/s², any higher and it will occasionally skip steps. If somebody made a Nema17-compatible servo with an integrated driver at an affordable price, i bet it would sell like hotcakes.