Great product

[rippersoft]

I ordered the HobbyCNC 3 Axis board and received it over the weekend. Within a few hours I had it completed. I am real pleased with the simplicity of the product and the directions.

Good job creating the product!

[CNCadmin]

For the money it's a great board and easy to use for sure.

[Gary McCray]

Just thought I'd second it. I havent found anything to match the features, microstepping and power at anything like the price. I have 2 now and am planning on using more of them in CNC machines I am making for resale.

[HobbyCNC]

Originally Posted by Gary McCray Just thought I'd second it. I havent found anything to match the features, microstepping and power at anything like the price. I have 2 now and am planning on using more of them in CNC machines I am making for resale.

Thanks for the kind words. We try very hard to provide great products at an even greater value. Have Fun!

Dave Rigotti
HobbyCNC

[rippersoft]

By the way, Dave, I have a couple of articles you wrote about PC power supply conversions. I am taking what you wrote and combining that with an article I found from a ham radio experimenter.

What I will be doing is to serially connect the 12VDC outputs of 3 power supplies to get around 30-35 VDC and use that to push the stepper motors. The first supply is grounded and the second and third supplies are not earth grounded and will "float". This allows the output of each power supply to be the "ground" of the next.

Without 5VDC drawing on the supply, I would think that 10 to 15 amps would be available since the PC power supply apparently load balances between the 5VDC and the 12VDC outputs.

Should be interesting. Always remember that when playing with electricity, remove your rings, watches, and keep one hand behind your back.

[rustyolddo]

Originally Posted by rippersoft What I will be doing is to serially connect the 12VDC outputs of 3 power supplies to get around 30-35 VDC and use that to push the stepper motors. The first supply is grounded and the second and third supplies are not earth grounded and will "float". This allows the output of each power supply to be the "ground" of the next.

Have you gotten to this point yet? A quick look inside one PC supply that I had looked like it would be difficult to make it float.

[rippersoft]

I did and it did not work. I think the problem is the power supply(s). Because I removed the PS boards from the cases, I had to solder some of the ground leads to the underside of board in order to provide ground where the case would have supplied it.

I will need to recheck the PS boards individually and try to fire each one up and see if I get output. If not, then the heatsinks and other parts are fair game for other projects.

[Chris D]

I too have the Hobby CNC board - 3 axis. I have had it running on my machine for about a year now and find it to be very good.

I will be purchasing another 3 axis board along with the steppers (200 Oz in) etc. for working on the final prototype for a machine design I will be presenting later this year. After that, I hope there will be many more people buying the HobbyCNC kits based on our project plan.

Very pleased as you can probably tell:-)

Chris

[tq9516pjm]

What are you using as a power supply for the 3 axis board?

I purchased the Triad transformer they recommended but cannot get it to work.
It was part no F-401U.

Right now i am just experimenting with 3 1Amp motors just to see if i can even get them to spin. SO far no luck.

[rippersoft]

I built a powersupply from 4 24VAC 4 amp transformers that have individual components for each transformer and then the + lines from each capacitor are ganged together for one output. The ground from the caps are also ganged together.

The output is ~35VDC and 16amps. All components are mounted in an old desktop PC case with plenty of fans. I have also mounted a 8ohm 25watt resistor from + to ground thru a switch. This drains the caps.