Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] getting started

Hi Dave,

Sounds like you might be interested in something Dan (Camtronics) did a
while back in "Nuts & Volts" magazine (see CCED's files):

CNC Router (Dan's Plans)
A modified vers. of Dan Mauch's CNC
circuit board driller (Dec 94 Nuts &
Volts magazine).

Or Possibly Dave Rigotti's plan set for a wooden router.

http://www.hobbycnc.com/

You'll be a little slow and low powered with the driver/motor
(unipolar), but these designs don't need as much.

For Linux, you'll want EMC. Hay, you could even "port" Pascal TurboCNC
(list on yahoo) to Linux!

HTH

Alan KM6VV



david_margrave wrote:

>
> Hello. This is my first posting to this group. I'm fascinated by CNC
> controls and I'm interested in getting started with an inexpensive,
> unabmitious project with a high probability of success. I have a
> mill, lathe, etc. but converting those to CNC will be a project for
> another day.
>
> I want to start out CHEAP and SIMPLE! Like a plywood table with
> V-threaded rods and regular old nuts for drives, driving a pen
> plotting head in X-Y-Z. There is a local electronics store where a
> few months back I bought a do-it-yourself $20 stepper motor driver kit
> and a $5 stepper motor of unknown torque specs.
>
> How hard is the electronics? Can I just get a couple more of the
> stepper driver kits, a couple more $5 steppers, wire up some relays to
> the parallel port, and have the cheap plotting table up and running?
> I want to start out with just plotting stuff until I get the hang of
> the software involved, the design and machine programming aspects of
> it, generating and interpreting G-code, etc. I can worry about
> hogging out chips later, much later!
>
> Software-wise I'll be working 100% on linux.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Dave