3DPrinting

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3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.

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Why do we still use stepper motors? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/3dprinting

60 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Why are 3D printers still stuck on stepper motors? Why haven't we transitioned to servo motors with encoder feedback for positioning?

Is it just too cost prohibitive for the consumer-level? We would be able to print a lot faster and more accurately if we had position feedback on the axes. Instead we just rely blindly on the stepper not skipping any steps when we tell it to move, hoping for the best.

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[–] curiousPJ 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It seems like the argument is that at the lower price bracket, stepper motors offer higher performance than what a equivalently priced servo+encoder+controller combo can perform.

I felt like what I was reading in this thread wasn't matching up with that I see out in industry... concerns about 'price' didn't come up until your post.

Diamond turning machines are inherently low torque, low speed, AND nanoscale operations which uses servos for driving its respective axis. See precitech -youtube and in stark comparison Roeder's 5axis optical mold machining. Wire EDM's were all driven by servo motors until linear motors became popular. Even those famous JingDiao test samples are made on machines driven by servos.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

precitech -youtube

Roeder's 5axis optical mold machining

JingDiao test samples

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

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