Mini Free CNC - Mark 0.1
So I have my first "working" "CNC" machine. :-) It's actually kindof silly.
As I was scrounging old and dead electronics from around Ottawa, I realized that scanners and dot matrix printers have already got the mechanics and motor control for stepper-powered axes.
So, I took an old scanner and an old dot matrix printer, ripped everything except the motor and the belt-driven gantry out of each, and stacked them on top of one another orthogonally.
Then, I built a couple of L297-based stepper drive circuits on my breadboard, hooked it up to the Arduino, and wrote a little sketch.
Tonight, I have my own 2-axis CNC machine drawing a picture of a house. I have to hold the pen in place by hand, but it does the drawing. :-) It's very neat.
First real success. One more axis, a little more work, and I'll be doing interesting things in no time!
As I was scrounging old and dead electronics from around Ottawa, I realized that scanners and dot matrix printers have already got the mechanics and motor control for stepper-powered axes.
So, I took an old scanner and an old dot matrix printer, ripped everything except the motor and the belt-driven gantry out of each, and stacked them on top of one another orthogonally.
Then, I built a couple of L297-based stepper drive circuits on my breadboard, hooked it up to the Arduino, and wrote a little sketch.
Tonight, I have my own 2-axis CNC machine drawing a picture of a house. I have to hold the pen in place by hand, but it does the drawing. :-) It's very neat.
First real success. One more axis, a little more work, and I'll be doing interesting things in no time!
posted by Shawn Vincent at
9:17 PM
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