New DIY CNC Machine (micro)

[edward.ford]

Hey All,
I've been working on this mill for a few months now and it's finally starting to come together. There are a couple more pieces I need before I can glue the sections (and remove those rubber bands) but once the pieces are done, this baby should be ready to make some chips (*fingers crossed!*)

I'm especially proud of where the spindle mounts to the Z axis. I made it out of one piece to include the spindle mount, the mount to the bearing, AND the acme nut. It's 3D printed from shapeways.com.

After the sections are glued/fastened together I will shoot some video of the machine sliding around on the bearings for everyone to see. However, I'm going to need a little bit of help getting the electronics working correctly as I'm trying a different (read: less expensive) setup than I have used in the past. If all works out as planned I will be driving the motors with 3 "easy driver v4" stepper controllers from Sparkfun (They should be delivered early next week). However, at this point I'm not sure how to get them up and running. I suppose we will cross that bridge when we get there.

So, the setup will be:
-8 wire steppers I bought from alltronics about a year ago
-Easy Driver v4 from Sparkfun
-Power supply? (I'm open for suggestions)
-EMC2
-CamBam

Here is the flicker feed of my new machine. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the design and any predictions as to where it might fail.The wood is lasercut 1/4" MDF.

[abomb55076]

Wow, looks great, did you get those parts made for you or did you cut them yourself?

[Jay C]

What program are you using to draw the "box joints" with? The next thing I want to try is milling some simple boxes.

[rot]

Hello,

nice little lasercut machine.

greetings

rene

[edward.ford]

Hey all, sorry for the slow reply. If you take a look at the flickr feed, there are quite a few new pictures of the machine! It's completely assembled, now all I need to do is figure out the electronics part.

@abomb55076: I had a company called Ponoko (www.ponoko.com) cut the pieces for me. They are laser cut 1/4" MDF. I highly recommend using ponoko, they are great.

@Jay C: I used Autodesk Inventor to Draw the machine. For the joints, I just used a rectangular pattern with .25" spacing.

@Rene: Thanks! I just hope it will actually make chips
I have an EasyDriver from Sparkfun that I want to test on one of the Axis, just to make sure my motors are going to drive the thing. However, I'm having a heck of a time figuring out how to wire an 8-wire stepper to a controller that only accepts 4 wires? Anyone have experience with this?

I figured out which wires have continuity to each other but now I'm not sure what to do with them. Do i just take one form each group and tie them all together for M+ or do I twist the pairs together to make 4?

[Arquibaldo]

Beautiful design, edward.ford.

Do you intend to sell the plans or make them available somehow?

I would be interested...

Nelson

[Jay C]

Originally Posted by edward.ford However, I'm having a heck of a time figuring out how to wire an 8-wire stepper to a controller that only accepts 4 wires? Anyone have experience with this? I figured out which wires have continuity to each other but now I'm not sure what to do with them. Do i just take one form each group and tie them all together for M+ or do I twist the pairs together to make 4?

Not sure about if your EZDriver is bipolar or unipolar but have a look at this. It shows all 3 different hook ups (Unipolar, bipolar series and bipolar parallel.

Jay

[edward.ford]

All, thanks again for the feedback! This little machine is really close to being done. Other than the electronics, I only need to fab a holder for the dremel.

@Arquibaldo: Yes, I will definitely make the plans available when they're finished! The only problem is that for them to work correctly, you would have to obtain the same linear rails that i used.I bought mine on ebay so I'm not sure if they would expensive to buy new or if they would be easy to find used... We'd have to look into that.

@Jay C: Thanks for the link. I guess this is the problem about not knowing something though, even after looking over the PDF, i'm not sure what it means

I'll keep reading up on how steppers work, and maybe that will lead me to the answer of what to do with the 8 wires.... Wish me luck!

[jalessi]

Edward,

Please post the make and model stepper motors you have, I will draw a wiring diagram for you.

Jeff...

[Jay C]

if the wood doesn't work out, I just saw these

[edward.ford]

@Jeff: Thank you for the offer but after asking around in the Sparkfun forum and doing a little more research, I finally got it figured out. Here's a shot of X and Z running for the first time.





I ordered two more easy drivers from Sparkfun, which should be here next week sometime. I'm by no means an electronics wizard, see previous posts for proof , but I think i can use there to control all 3 axis'! Which is a pretty sweet deal considering they're only $15 each. I know there are some pretty inexpensive 3 axis controllers, but I've never seen one for $45.

After the EasyDrivers come in, I'll start trying to get them to work with EMC2 through the parallel port. So far I've only used an arduino to control them.

If anyone has experience with this sort of thing (especially pin assignments in EMC2) please let me know!

Also, I'm keeping tabs on the project through my blog, so if anyone is interested in more pictures, videos, etc. have a look over there. (www.edslifedaily.com).

[Jay C]

Increase your acceleration value Great progress.