Geckodrive G251X Micro Stepping Stepper Motor Driver | 50VDC 3.5A NEMA 17-34 | 2 Phase | Perfect for CNC, 3D Printing Machines | Made and Supported in the USA

This little guy is the absolute best of cheap stepper drivers. Don't be fooled by those $5-$20 drivers, they're made from chips that were never meant to be used in that way, and will spontaneously smoke when you power them up sometimes. Every time you apply the power, you roll the dice, and eventually it's going to come up snake eyes. That is, if they ever power on in the first place.There's only one catch with this driver, and that's the fixed 10x microstepping. If you're using a platform like the grbl, you might find that the maximum pulse rate combined with 10x microstepping gives you an uncomfortably low top speed. But this is easily fixed by replacing the weak link (the grbl) with a proper computer that can pulse at a reasonable rate.

This driver is working great right out of the gate. I upgraded to it from DRV8825 driver chips which were really straining to drive about 2.5A. Meanwhile, the G251X does 2.8A without breaking a sweat. Not only that, but it's noticeably smoother - whereas at very low speeds the motor used to vibrate/shudder visibly, now it's nice and smooth. The effect of the mid-band resonance damping adjustment potentiometer was very easy to hear, which made it straightforward to adjust and also lends confidence that it's helping.

High quality and small drive

This thing is tiny! Really a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Seems like it's going to work well.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If your breakout board uses 3 wires per axis and your common is (+) these drivers will not work. This driver requires the common to be the ground otherwise the driver will remain locked. That said, the gecko G201x common can be ground, +3v, or +5v. This is the exact driver used in my Relatively High end kit from CandCNC.com for Plasma tables. My first CNC build used the electronics kit from candcnc for about $4000, which I don't regret since there is a lot more specialty stuff for plasma dthc and what not. However when I decided to build a cnc router, I knew that the electronics would be far more simple so I sourced a ton of parts from all over the internet. At first I used cheap import drivers to complement my cheap import steppers and import breakout board. No Surprise, the table didn't operate as smoothly as my plasma table. Then after one of my drivers fried and also fried my power supply, I decided to give gecko drivers a shot since I knew they work great on my plasma table. I am blown away with the difference these drivers make. Microstepping is smoother, more torque in all rpm ranges, and close to 2x top speed without stalling. In fact with these microstep morphing, these run faster than the import drivers set to full step mode. My z axis has a 16tpi screw and with import drivers could only run consistently at 25 ipm with acceleration set at 1 without risk of stalling; when testing the limits of this driver I ran all the way up to 100 ipm with accel set at 3 without stalling granted granted running a stepper at 1600rpm renders almost no torque and it would probably lose steps, But I am running it at 50 IPM with acceleration at 3 and haven't stalled once. In my opinion the best way to build a low budget cnc is to make sure you use drivers such as these or the Gecko g201x depending on your breakout board configuration. I have no regrets using gecko drivers even though they cost 4X as much as imports.

Estoa drivers son dufrentes a los que he tenido. Los motores ahora están completamente silenciosos y el movimiento es mas suave sin golpes o chirridos. Una buena inversiónSaludos desde Chile