Re: Help?? CNC PCB Drilling Machine

Sammy,

KISS. Keep it simple Sammy!

Try to visit a machine shop and talk to the machinists about their
tools. Most will love the excuse to show off their equipment.

Look at everything with new eyes. The items that have been used to
solve this puzzle are amazingly simple and common.

Don't try for commercial equipment accuracy. The higher the
accuracy, the higher the cost will be.

A unipolar stepper motor driver can consist of as little as 4
transistors and 5 resistors hanging off of a parallel port. The CAM
software must be capable of driving each phase.

It sounds as though your machine will not have to be fast, but it
must work. CNC PC milling machines have been built with stepper
motors rated at 50 in-oz less.

Once you have a working model you can refine it later to be bigger,
faster, more accurate, and more complex.


Have fun and good luck.

Tony





--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Sammy" <sammytaggart@h...>
wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> Firstly, my apologises for my "newbieness". Im very sorry if i

annoy

> anyone cause what im doing sound a whole lot easier than what u

folks

> are all talking about.
>
> so, Im a final year technology and design (With education..teacher
> to be) student in Belfast, northern ireland and as part of my final
> year assignment i have chosen to design and manufacture a CNC PCB
> Milling machine.
>
> As most schools in northern ireland, i am forced to use PCB Wizard

as

> the mask creating software, but it produces an nc .drl file hich i
> can easily convert to g-code using a converter i found on the net.

I

> have then chosen to use Master 5 to control the system via parallel
> port. this i think is the most of the software/gcode problems

sort.

> the next and most ambitous problem is making the actual machine.
>
> Stepper motor control of and xy table with a gantry type z axis i
> feel would probably work best for me. My question is,
>
> what do i need to make such a board
>
> Is anyone aware of the stepper motor drivers required to operate a
> stepper frm the parallel port?
>
> What sort of stepper
>
> How do i make the xy table....
>
> im pretty new to all this so sorry again.
>
> Also i cant really buy "kits" or a complete xy table..i cant just
> assemble the thing..i must design and make the whole thing so thats
> going to be time consuming.
>
> I'd really appreciate help on this one. I'm only 22 with no
> qualifications/experience on this topic
>
> Any education from anyone about ANY of this stuff would be much
> appreciated
>
> THANK YOU
>
> Sammy Taggart
>
> Northern ireland