Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] ??? from a guy hoping to graduate up to newbie.

Howdy! Boy, this sure does sound familiar <G>. If your motivation is to
learn about this stuff, you might consider the following modified
sequence.

Step 1 you visit some places like Salvation Army, Good Will etc. to pick
no longer needed/used floppy disk drives. After you take these apart you
will have some steppers to play with for a very nominal sum. I picked up
2 floppy drives for an Apple IIe for 50 cents a piece.

Step 2 You could look at Boondog's 8255 board.
http://www.boondog.com/
This gets you a board with 24 digital "puts". These 24 "puts" can be
either "in" or "out" or any combination of the two. In the package he
also has a tutorial about using the board to drive a stepper motor.
Total cost so far? $45 for the board, $1.80 for the floppies ~ $50. The
software to do all this is QBasic or Turbo C.

Step 2A Take a look at the model 30 board at Prairie Digital
http://www.prairiedigital.com/Products/model30.htm This is also an 8255
board but he includes an 8 bit analog to digital converter, 8 channel
analog multiplexor, and a 12 bit CMOS counter. This will set you back
$79.

Step 3 Having plumbed the depths of your investment, you are now ready
to apply one of the G code/milling freeware/shareware packages to your
already working system. By proceeding in a step-wise manner you are
spared the grief of Step 4.

Using your original plan, when you get to Step 4, you have 4 untried
pieces to fit together. You could consider these to be "degrees of
freedom". When solving a problem, I'm always better off if I can reduce
the degrees of freedom I have to deal with. Of course, YMMV. <G>

BTW One of the benefits of getting and using an 8255 board is that it
can be used for all kinds of things.
BTW2 I have no interest in Boondog or Prairie Digital other than as a
very satisfied customer. (some day I'll tell you the story about how the
people at Prairie Digital saved me, my sanity, and my dissertation from
going up in smoke)

pladds@... wrote:

> Hi all,
> My first objectives is to "home brew" a system which will operate one
> stepper motor. All I wish to accomplish is to get a motor's rotor to
> spin and control its movements. After I accomplish this, it won't be
> too long before I know how to control the world and everything in it.
> Right? What a hobby!
>
> Here's my plan -- any and all suggestions would be appreciated:
>
> 1. Get a stepper motor.
> 2. Get a circuit board to connect the motor to the parallel port of a
> PC.
> 3. Get two types software:
> i. Software (drivers?) which allow PC to communicate with the
> circuit board and motor.
> ii. Software to run motion control code (G code).
>
> 4. Get the whole mess to work together.
>
> I understand that there are many details which have been excluded
> here i.e. operating system issues, dual boot or separate PC, circuits,
>
> uni/bipolor, computer language, etc.
>
> But, do I at least have a basic understanding of the components
> (elements)needed to operate a stepper motor with a PC?
>
> Pladds
> --
> Feels so good to do the right thing ... it's a wonder I don't do it
> more often.
>
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