Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner


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Thread: Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner

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    Default Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner

    hi all,
    i just started building my own cnc router, i used an old epson inkjet printer the structure and the limit switches and motors, the cartridge charriot is perfect to hold a dremel or other. The printer structure is mounted on the moving part of an HP scanner. the Z axis is still under construction, but i plan to use the paper drive motor. This assembly gives me a working area of an A4 paper or +/- (200mm on 300mm).

    I'm now trying to find the specs of my motors. i think the paper drive one is a 48 steps, didn't look at the others for now. From the PCB of the printer suppose they were driven with 42V, as those tracks are marked on the PCB and goes near two completly same group of components that seam to be the drivers, and ends to the two connectors. I added a picture of it.

    I plan to use a pic to buffer gcode from the PC and transmit them to related subpic(s). As in the futher i maybe will extend the machine(vacuum,display,toolchange,axis). For now the master unit sends pre-defined commands to hosts. One of the hosts is the axis motor controller, i used a recycled 16F876. the master is for now also a 16F876. in a pic simulation software the calibration or home-run procedure works perfectly but i dunno how to build this out...

    I miss a part between the pic and the four wires of the motor. with a multimeter i got a little 9 Ohms between wire 1 and 3 and bewteen 2 and 4. I suppose this are my coils. but i'm missing some knowledge about that, i found some shemes on th net but hey are for 5 or 6 wire motors and i don't see how to adapt them. Could anyone help me with that... On the other hand i will have to look for opensource G-Code software. anyone has clues on that one maybe?

    Regards

    Sorry for that broken english i have..

    Similar Threads:
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner-pcb2-gif   Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner-pcb3-jpg   Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner-motor-z-48-steps-jpg  
    Last edited by codemaster; 12-18-2005 at 07:22 AM.


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    I finished the scanner body work, I had to cutout the whole plastic bottom of the scanner to have a deeper workarea, Now i have at least 1inch more in depht. I'm still blocking on the transistor part for those steppers. The Z axis is almost finished, I will make some picts of the machine in the actual state.



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    Pminmo has done a lot of work on drivers that he has published.
    http://engraving.majosoft.com/html/P...inmo-com-.html

    Just a warning: The steppers from most printers don't have a lot of torque so will not be able to push a dremel without gearing. You really need some more substantial steppers.

    Paul



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    Default Here are some picts of the thing

    I took some pictures of the thing, i would really apreciate some help on the transistors stuff..

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner-machine-1-gif   Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner-machine-2-gif  


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    Quote Originally Posted by paulC
    Pminmo has done a lot of work on drivers that he has published.
    http://engraving.majosoft.com/html/P...inmo-com-.html

    Just a warning: The steppers from most printers don't have a lot of torque so will not be able to push a dremel without gearing. You really need some more substantial steppers.

    Paul

    Thanks,

    I will look for better steppers, or maybe i will use a flexible to connect the dremel this allowe me to use a small servo for the Z axis.



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    My first router i used the carriages from two printers and made a body out of mdf, then used the belt drives and the shafts from the printers to hold everything. it worked okay and i guess i could have continued using it. I got lucky one of the steppers was big enough but the x axis one was not so i found a bigger stepper and fixed that. I should have used the shaft for a spindle rather then mounting the dremel. I think it was too heavy. I was using a ucn5804b board design which has been around for a long time. The chips are obsolete now. And Phil has some excellent designs on his site as well. Most of those chips can be had as samples aswell. I blew one of the chips on my board and started building a new controller board, got carried away with design and have upsized a bit and am still working on another design. I was using drawer slides and the backlash was horible so i went to bearings and rods. I got the bearings from vxd bearing on ebay 100 bearings for 15bucks.
    Heres some old pics of the controller board now deceased and my base as i was building the router. JGRO's design in diy wood router section is awesome as well, works well just to have the pdf file and see how things are built in that design.

    Phils site a must have.
    http://pminmo.com

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner-cimg0007-jpg   Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner-router3-jpg  
    Have a good one.
    Dave


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    Thanks Dave,
    pminmo's site is great, i took a looky on his boards and adapted something, i took a board based on the L298. The one on the site uses also the L297. But i think i may replace this with my Pic. here is the current sheme, the battery is of course not a battery and it misses a couple of 100nF capacitors. I'm also a little bit confused about the sense pins...

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner-stepper1-gif  


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    i think this thread is in the wrong place i just took a looky on open-source specifications and this is not what i'm doing lol i'm sorry, could an admin or moderator displace this thread ...



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    I just informed for the price of a L298, those chips costs almost 6 dollars / pc here, damn, i will take another looky to find something cheaper



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    I made a EDM board which is not cnc but was supposed to use the 5804 chip. I could not find any so converted to the mc3479 which is close with some pins reversed.
    Hope this may be of help.
    John



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    Smile

    Quote Originally Posted by vulcom1
    I made a EDM board which is not cnc but was supposed to use the 5804 chip. I could not find any so converted to the mc3479 which is close with some pins reversed.
    Hope this may be of help.
    John
    Thanks for the reply the mc3479 is max 16v, i need 42v, I will use those expensive L298 but build the controllers one by one, and wait a little bit(after new year... Maybe Santa will see this before he gets off....). Somebody told me and hé it's logic 'higher the power, higher the price'

    I'm setting up the limit switches right now.I found a litttle vacuum and just started the schemes for the master controller. This board is the head of the machine, like it said it stores the G-Code from the computer and reports status information. I have an old Ethernet->RS232 converter with telnet and all the stuff... maybe I will use it but I prefer to hold it for a better application. I'm also spending a lot of time on learning the M and G-codes, I try to generate them from bitmaps with c-sharp.But that's not really easy. anybody knows a software ? maybe

    Thanks for the replies

    Regards.



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    Concerning the mc3749 chip, I use 4 2n3055,s to the steppers. The board is on 8 volts regulated with a 7808 and the steppers operating on 24 volts 5 amps. I think you could boost it to what you want as long as the power transistor's can handle it. My stepper is also from a printer and I am going to use more for a foam cutter/gantry style combination. This will be cnc.
    John



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    Default bump

    hey hey

    i am going to make one myself to. eventhough im not using the printer/scanner's driver circuits it should look about the same.
    i can chose from 3 scanners or 2 scanners and a printer.. i dont know what the advantages/disadvantages are but i think the printer might have more than one stepper.
    should i go with the printer of scanner?

    cheers diamantmatch



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    Default CNC Project using a inkjet printer

    I want to make a CNC out of an an ink jet printer I have.
    I have a question if anyone can answer it would save me some time.
    I see most use a Acme threaded screw to move the XYZ axis.
    Can I use the existing belt/stepper motor setup that is used to move the print head side to side to move the router on one of the axis?

    Thanks

    Philip



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    Hey can you please tell me what you used to control the cnc?



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    I realize that this thread is over 7 years old,but I am just starting a project of my on where i build a cnc machine from two printers/scanners and need much need it guidance. i honestly have no clue on how to start the building of the machine.

    Thank You in advance



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    I would first determine what kind of steppers you have. I think for printers and scanners they're only 36 steps per inch or such and they gain their resolutin through gearing. If they're more than 2-phase it may be difficult or expensive to buy or make drives for the stepperrs. Really, with the price of stuff on eBay you might be better off ditching the parts and getting stuff better suited...



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Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner

Building a cnc router with an old printer and an old scanner