Hi guys,
Recently I received my 6050 3W blue laser engraver. Its main purpose is to help me with LED PCB prototyping. It will mostly cut out single use stencils for solder. And also burn out solder mask from the solder pads (I intend to expose all of the solder mask to UV light, without a light mask, harden it all, and then burn out the solder pads. I did a tes with some old PCBs, and it burns solder mask quite nicely).
I did some research beforehand. So immediately after assembly and testing with the built in Benbox software, I replaced it with GRBL and LaserWeb.
The thing runs very nice with LaserWeb, and I already did my first stencil, and overall I am happy with this little machine.
However it is really barebone and needs a lot of add-ons to make it comfortable for use.
- Cable management is an issue, and I need to add cable drag chains and trays for them.
- The X-axis carriage was a bit wobbly, I managed to fix it with the cable ties method, but I feel it is not going to last for long, and I need to add the custom tensioner from this link
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2482004
- A proper enclosure with fume exhaust is needed. A vacuum table would be nice too.
- Last but not least I want to add limit switches, so the software could use them to automatic calibrate its X and Y axis. (In case that the gantry has been misaligned and is not parallel to the X-axis. i would do this on every start of the machine. Right now I am doing this manually. The results are reasonable, but I believe adding limit switches with improve its accuracy)

So I am just now starting to learn about the Arduino and its CNC shields. My previous experience with CNC is on a 3-Axis router ran by Mach 3.
I did however notice that the CNC shield provided with the engraver has just two controllers for the stepper motors. Meaning that the two stepper motors for the Y-axis are driven by the same controller. And there are no pins to connect the limit switches.
So I will have to order a new shield, at least those are cheap. But I need help choosing the right shield.
That would be a shield with 3 stepper motor controllers, one for the X-axis, two for the left and right stepper motors of the Y-axis. And connectors for 6 limit switches. And should be able to operate a laser instead of a spindle (I don't really know how the Arduino distinguishes them).
What really bothers me is, that most shields that I've seen, that have 3 stepper motor controllers, are meant to drive X, Y and Z axis. And I want to make it control X and two instances of the Y axis.

I do believe that someone has already done this mod, but my Google searches did not find anything. Perhaps I am using the wrong keywords.
I would greatly appreciate some info on the topic, links to similar mods, etc...

Similar Threads: