Yet another new guys intro / beginner project

Well, I've made a post here and there, but I thought that I'd make an official intro to everyone today.

My name is Kevin, I'm a 25 year old firefighter/paramedic, and I have alot of time off between shifts. Woodworking/CAD/CNC all used to be major loves of mine, but after high school I decided that I wanted to get into this field to help people.

As far as my project goes, I am building basically a clone of Yukonho's Project. I am making some design modifications and alterations to suit my space the machine will be going in my garage and my budget. On that note, as far as the budget goes, I have very little. I have a 5 month old daughter that takes alot of my budget so.....I am going to be cutting corners here and there to take some off of the cost. I am going to need a lot of help on the electrical aspect of things, I am going to try to make my own stepper boards and electronics from parts I can scrap/find/or aquire cheap.

I just got my hands on 5 dot matrix printers, 3 are the same (IBM ProPrinter II), an Epson Action Printer 5000+, and (Oops, just noticed the fifth was actually an old fax machine...). I am hoping to maybe scrap some of the parts from these, mainly the motors and slides for the z axis.

I'm going to play this out kind of as a real time, step-by-step, learn as I go and I really look forward to user interaction on your part. I will be the first to admit I'm as new as it gets, and from reading around there is alot of knowledge here to go around.

After getting the first one apart, I am left with the power supply, the circuit board, a bunch of assorted rods, and...........

Sanyo Step-Syn Stepping Motor

DC 4.1V, 1.1A, 1.8deg/step...

Any input on these motors? I have 6 wires coming out of them. This is out of the IBM that I have three identical printers...

I think I found a nice pair of sturdy rods that would make good Z axis rails. I'm going to try and salvage the bushings for them.

Here is a picture of the rear label of my motor, sorry for the junk resolution on it, I took it with my phone because my wife has her camera at work.

the motors look small,but will work if you use a pulley set up with at least 3:1 ratio for more torgue,these are unipolar motors but can be wired bi-polar,two of the wires will not be used,the center tap on each coil wont be used,just tape them up good,use a tester to find each coil,check for continuity,the three wires with continuty make up a coil,now to find center tap use ohm meter,the two with the higher ohms are each side of the coil,center tap has lower ohm reading,tape that one off on both coil,if you use bi-polar drivers,do you plan to use the drives from the printers?they are unipolar and might now work as well

Does it look like the motors are small for a small machine? I guess I should have mentioned that I am only looking at having a 12" x 12" x 3-4" working area. I only want something small to have some fun with and make replacement parts for my RC Helicopter.

I am actually going to try and make PMinMO's boards. This is going to be a learning experience all around and I think it'd be fun to try this out. I am the type of guy that has a little knowledge about alot of stuff, but not alot about everything. I would like to expand upon that knowledge with this project.

My other question is...Is it possible to alter the power supplies from the printers to use as a power supply for my router?

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My other question is...Is it possible to alter the power supplies from the printers to use as a power supply for my router?

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If you measure the voltage from the printers you will find they are doing the same thing the rest of us are.. 1.5volt motors powered by 35 volts. The trick is to limit the current. So to answer your question, yes you can use the printer power supply and that may be a good idea because they are desinged to get the max from that motor. I dabbled a bit in a machine from printers but SOON realized it would have to be too small for my dreams. ;)

Does anyone know of any good websites to learn about circuit building and stuff? Not just stepper controllers, but just in general. I have class tomorrow and I need something to do to kill some time.

emtffkev-if you live near a radioshack, checkout the forest mimms books! they are really great in my opinion. Forest M. makes it easy for people to learn if they are into DIY type books, and he puts in enough information to make it work. At first alot of these circuits seem totally inapplicable to CNC, but then you think about it.

Power Supply Circuits
Signal Inverters
Pulse generators
One-Off Switches

All can be useful for cnc in some way. Especially for interfacing more advanced features in the future.. One off switches using a timer IC can make a better E-Stop. Pulse generators can allow a manual job panel with very low cost, signal inverters can be used as buffers, or just use a buffer chip.

There are some good online sources for inexpensive breadboards and component kits. Radioshack will really bite you.. Ive spent sooo much $$$ at RS!



free online ebook:
http://www.science-ebooks.com/electr...lectronics.htm

this is interesting:
http://www.opencircuits.com/Main_Page

Ok guys, I guess electronics is not my strong suit, it seems the more I read about the electronics the more I get confused as to what I need and what is definitely required to get me going.

For the time being because they were free and I have some cost restraints I am going to be sticking with those motors with the hopes to upgrade them as the need arises.

While I am waiting to get the lumber and hardware parts for the build, I have alot of electronics and stuff laying around the house. I am going to try and get some of that going before I actually start building, taking the idea from someone else's machine, I think I want to get this handled to make sure I can before I make the investment into the machine.

Because of the cost effectiveness of it and that I always want to learn how to do something new, I want to try to build my electronics and boards rather than buy them. This is my weak spot. I am looking all over for detailed posts in this forum and all over the web for ways to do this. I have found some good sites, and thing I decided on a board for my use. What do you guys think of this? Now I know this is a PCB plan, but I want to try and make this out of a stripboard or breadboard first to get it going. If someone can give me a rundown of exactly what I need to build electronically it would be appreciated.

This is the general way that I think it goes, please correct me if I'm wrong...
Controlling PC --> ??Breakout Board?? --> Stepper controller --> Motors

I thought that too so I made these drivers and a non-opt breakout board (soon to build a opt isolated one)

http://www.fromorbit.com/index.php
And your order of operation is correct.

Because of the cost effectiveness of it and that I always want to learn how to do something new, I want to try to build my electronics and boards rather than buy them. This is my weak spot. I am looking all over for detailed posts in this forum and all over the web for ways to do this. I have found some good sites, and thing I decided on a board for my use. What do you guys think of this? Now I know this is a PCB plan, but I want to try and make this out of a stripboard or breadboard first to get it going. If someone can give me a rundown of exactly what I need to build electronically it would be appreciated.

This is the general way that I think it goes, please correct me if I'm wrong...
Controlling PC --> ??Breakout Board?? --> Stepper controller --> Motors[/quote]

Thanks for the link, I will check that out now. Just out of curiosity what do you mean by non-opt breakout board and opt isolated? I apologize for my apparent ignorance, but hey....I'm learning :)

Well Today I made a prototype interface board. I used the plans from PMinMO, specifically this one. I just have to get the 5v voltage regulator and one of the transistors that radio shack didn't have. I'll post a pic of it tomorrow. I plan to use this interface board and the discrete controller. Does that sound like a good plan?

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Originally Posted by emtffkev

what do you mean by non-opt breakout board and opt isolated?

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In simple terms:

The non-op = wire, or similar signal transfer is non-optical.

Opt isolated = light (Optical) signal transfer. The light isolates the continuous circuit to protect it.

Well, it's been a while since I updated.

I scrapped the old design for now. While I'd like to have a nice bigger machine in an enclosure, I thought it'd be a good idea to make an inexpensive one initially so I can get my feet wet.

I went to sams club and bought a couple cutting boards. I got lucky apparently, after reading a bit I found alot of people got boards that were less than .5", mine was exactly .5 +/- 0.005. I also started on my controller boards and my interface board. I am using the discrete plans from PMinMO for my controllers and the interface board from the same website.

Here are some pics of my progress today. Feel free to drop some input or critique as you see fit.

(Sorry for the picture quality, I am using my phone because I don't know where my wife put the camera)

Well I have the machine completely assembled with the exception of the motor mounts. I don't have any of the electronics completed yet, and it was killing me having that machine sitting there with nothing to do.

I couldn't resist it, i screwed down a peice of HDPE to the table, fired up the old dremel, and moved the machine by manually turning the screws with cranks.

I have to say it was very rewarding watching that thing cut through the HDPE like it was butter.

I will post some pictures later this evening showing the assembly so far.

Ok guys, I am getting ready to start building the controller soon, but I am curious how powerful of a power supply I will need. The motors I am using are 4.1v and 1.1A.

Ok, I've got the machine done, got my driver/interface board done, made a basic power supply.

Now my problem is, I don't know what to do with any of it. I'm not sure exactly how my driver board works. I used this board from PMinMO. My problem is that basically I don't know how to hook my motors up. I have 6 wire motors, but I don't know where to plug what. Basically I have all the components of my machine, I just don't know what to do with them. Any help???

Nothing? I know this place is a vast knowledge depository on CNC. Or....Can someone point me to a website that has a wiring setup or something for the steppers?

Check this.

From the looks of the schematic and board layout on that board the outputs (three 4 pin screw terminals) are the connection to the motor coils. Check the above link and determine which setup you are wanting to run. You may have to use an ohm meter to determine the coils on the motor so you can hook it up properly. This is just an example!!!

blue - yellow - red may have readings like 1 ohm between blue/yellow and red/yellow but will read 2 ohms between blue/red. This means that blue/yellow is one coil and red/yellow is the second coil OR blue/red can be wired as one coil. If it reads infinity then the wires are on different coils. Then you'll have to determine the other coils the same way.

Hope that makes sense.

The two pin screw terminal is for power input (up to 30vdc according to the documentation). Watch polarity when connecting it up. Once you get the motors and power connected test the motor turning. If it just vibrates back and forth switch the wires on one coil (after shutting off power) and test it again. A word of caution: Never attach or remove a stepper motor wiring from the driver board with power applied. It will let the magic smoke out. I've never done it to a driver board but I've had it happen on other things. :D

That helps alot, my biggest problem is that there are 4 posts to hook the stepper wires up to and I don't know which wires to hook to which post. I have had problems distinguishing which wire is what on the stepper but your explanation has helped alot. I will head home later and try that out so I can figure out which goes where.

My confusion is.....I'll use the x axis for example. On the board there is a connector with 2 posts for x1 and x2. Now... I know now (thanks to your great description) how to distinguish which wires are on what coils, but.....which x connector does what go to, and.....in which order?