What voltage for stepper drive?

[Davek0974]

In connection with a comment made about my chosen psu for my plasma table drive in my build thread, I did some more reading and have come up with a figure but not sure what to do.

my drivers are suitable for 12-48v but I bought conservatively a 36v psu presuming it would be good enough.

anyway, using a formula I found it shows an ideal voltage for my motors of 57v, clearly more than my drivers can handle and way more than my 36v unit.

question is, is it worth buying another psu of 48v or should I try it out first at 36v????

not sure what the issue would be if it arises?

[Jonathan]

The answer depends what you're planning to do with the motors. The speed at which the torque available from a stepper motor starts dropping quickly is the corner speed and it's proportional to the driver voltage. Increasing the power supply voltage from 36v to 48v will therefore increase the corner speed by about 33%. Weather you need that increase or not depends on the requirements of the load your driving...