[109jb]

Great thanks, looks like you are using 1/8 microstepping? Any reason not to go more, right now i have mine setup for 1/16. Everything else I have setup the same, the only difference I see is that you have your "StepLowActive" set to off. Where as the documentation for the MX4660 says "step and direction signal voltage should be 3.3-5VDC and Active High"

How has the kernal speed of 60000hz been working so far? I have mine set at 25000 but im not exactly sure what it even does.

Kernel speed is the maximum stepping rate. So at 25000Hz, you can send 25000 steps/sec or 1,500,000 steps/min.

Extreme microstepping does nothing for you really. Due to the way steppers work, microstepping can smooth rotation when rotating slowly, but at higher speeds really doesn't get you anything. In terms of accuracy, you only get guaranteed accuracy to 1/2 microstepping.

For example, lets say you have 1/4 microstepping selected and assume a perfect machine with no backlash, or friction that moves exactly 0.001" with every full step of the stepper. If you select 1/4 microstepping and command a 1/2 step, the machine will move exactly 0.0005", but if you command a 1/4 step, the perfect machine won't necessarily move 0.00025", it will be somewhere between 0 and 0.0005", but could be 0.0003". Better than full stepping or even 1/2 stepping, but only up to a point. In my opinion anything more than about 1/10 microstepping is useless. Just so happens that Gecko drive use 1/10 microstepping. Setting it higher really gains nothing.

Now back to kernel speed. Remember that 25kHz gets you 1,500,000 step commands per minute, and if you have 1/10 microstepping there are 200*10=2000 microsteps per rev, so 1,500,000/2000=750 RPM maximum. 60kHz will get you 60,000 * 60 /2000 = 1800 RPM, but steppers generally don't work well at this speed and about 1000-1200 RPM is about the max reliable you can expect without losing steps.

Lets say you have drivers that can do 1/256 microstepping. At 25kHz that would be 200*256=51,200 microsteps per rev. Then 1,500,000/51,200=29 rpm max. A blistering pace.

So, in general, my opinion is use microstepping to about 1/10, maybe 1/16, but no higher, and set your kernel sped to get you about 1200 rpm. If you do the math, that means about 40kHz. I believe Mach 3 has a 45kHz setting that is the closest and from what i have read is the most popular kernel speed for stepper machines.

I personally us LinuxCNC, and GRBL. GRBL has a max step rate of 30kHz, and I have my linuxCNC setup to achieve that 30kHz as well. I run 1/8 microstepping on my drives and for my machine that works out to 1125 rpm on the steppers and 225 inches per minute, which is just about perfect for my machine.