Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] I want introduce myself

Hi Bob,

Yes, probably several of us have old steppers from plotters/printers
too. They are probably quite light duty for the "dremel setup" you
envision. Easy enough to drive, just use 4 darlington 220 transistors
for each motor. If you have slow enough lead screws, you just might
make them move a small carriage. An HPGL plotter does about the same
thing as a 2D (2 1/2D) engraver, router, what have you. Might be just
enough for you!

Look at the driver circuits in those printers/plotters. They drive the
steppers! Cut them out and try them! Gang up a pair of motors per
axis, XYYZ style! You can mix the steppers any way you want. Even mix
step rates, lead screw pitches, etc, just be sure you can configure each
axis to match the motor.

You asked about robots, guess what, my first robot, built of stepper
cards/motors, and a small Single Board Computer ('79), could just as
easily run a simple XY router today! I executed a "script" of move
commands, which could just as easily be HPGL - type commands.

A parallel port can give you the programmable bits to run step/direction
or phase drives. You might want to look at the PC board (and/or parts)
that MAXNC offers. A couple of open collector inverts to drive the
220-case darlington transistors. Quite simple to do, really.

There is free BASIC software to drive the transistors through a printer
port, something to understand HPGL, or even GCODE.


read:

http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/step/ jones on steppers

http://www.maxnc.com/ MAXNC

http://www.wokingham.demon.co.uk/software/software.htm CNC shareware

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/3685/plotter/plotter.htm
home built plotter

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/3685/plotter/plotter.htm
CNC


Connect the motors, boards, hardware, run the software! have fun!

Alan


P.S. I (actually most of us) aren't selling anything! We're here to
share information!

> Robert Douglass wrote:
>
> Hi all, I am new to this group and would like a few basic
> questions answered. Can you mix and match stepper motors, and where
> can a newbe find the basic info to get started. I have several
> stepper motors, out of old plotters, and printers. I wonder if all
> the parts in the plotters are enough to get me started on building a
> mini three axis dremel setup.
> I have read on robotics sites about drivers and so on, how do
> these relate to cnc setups. To me it seems these are both doing the
> same thing, just different words. It seems to me you guys that know
> all about this cnc stuff want to just sell us whole setups, and treat
> us like mushrooms. What's up with this?
> I just want to build a simple little Desktop CNC Computerized
> Dremel setup like these people did. (see link below)
>
> Bob Douglass
>
> http://www.super-tech.com/root/minimchn.htm
>
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