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Written by Brian Amos
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When building a CNC mill, a quick and inexpensive method of driving the steppers was required. Several different stepper driver boards are available, but all seem to be in the range of at least $10-$15 per board, although they have about half that cost in components. The goal here is to create an inexpensive, home etch-able, stepper driver that has some nice features for use with a CNC mill.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 11 December 2012 07:11 |
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CNC Controller Board (revB) |
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Written by Brian Amos
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Our CNC Controller has been build up and testing has commenced! This revision has several improvements over revA (which was never fabricated). Here's a quick feature-set:
- integrated stepper drivers
- current selection via inexpensive single turn pots
- automatic idle current cutback
- spindle on-off control (connector for external relay)
- emergency stop switch input
- home switch inputs
- multiple power options
- ATX power supply
- auxiliary logic voltage
- auxiliary motor voltage
- parallel port connector
Read more for all the gory details of the changes made. . .
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Last Updated on Monday, 17 December 2012 08:28 |
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Written by Brian Amos
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As noted in the second portion of how NOT to build a CNC mill we reference the need for a new controller board. This board is designed to interface with EMC2 over a parallel port.
Desired Features
- integrated stepper drivers
- current selection via inexpensive single turn pots
- automatic idle current cutback
- spindle on-off control (connector for external relay)
- emergency stop switch input
- home switch input
- multiple power options
- ATX power supply
- auxiliary logic voltage
- auxiliary motor voltage
- parallel port connector
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Last Updated on Friday, 16 November 2012 14:26 |
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Written by Brian Amos
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Our friends over at J&A Photography came to us with an interesting proposition - a robotic diaper cake. . .we were all ears!
The concept was an "over the top" diaper cake that had fish rotating around it. Later there was some scope creep and we wound up with a bunch of RGB LED's as well. . .
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 04 September 2012 14:14 |
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Written by Brian Amos
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Having the capability to source or sink current can be a really useful when dealing with several aspects of electronics - from easily driving LED's to putting a load on a power supply or driver. We'll cover exactly why you might want a constant current sink, as well as how to build one.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 26 September 2012 05:13 |
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