Electronics Kit in Development
Happy New Year!! Although the CNC structure kit is available, I'm still in prototype stage with the electronics. The driver design has changed slightly to take advantage of more power to enable a wider variety of stepper motors. The electronics will now be based on the L297 and L6304 combo and will drive bi-polar stepping motors up to a whopping 4 amps per phase. The driver circuit will be designed to drive three axes without the need for a breakout board. That is to say, you will only need one driver board that the parallel port will connect read on...
3 comments:
Based on what I've been seeing with RepRap, I strongly encourage you consider the Arduino as the center of your system... the software side is so much nicer and they are pretty cheap.
RepRap has been able to control 4 motors + heaters and coolers all with a single Arduino. See here:
http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/Generation2Electronics
I'm in Canyon Lake Texas and really think there is opportunity to work together on the firmware and such.
Thank you.
Hey!
I really encourage you to consider the Arduino open source project for your electronics.
RepRap has recently completed a firmware set that can control 4 motors + heater and cooler. Look here:
RepRap Generation 2 Electronics
I'm in Canyon Lake Texas and really would love to see your CNC compatible with the RepRap electronics.
Thank you.
Thanks for the great suggestion. I am very much into embedded systems and programming microcontrollers. I tend to work with the AVR by Atmel, which, I believe, is in the Arduno. The microncontroller can do a great job with controlling and translating the interface signals, but I will still need to implement the driver chips so I can offer the amperage and voltage levels for machines as large as the one I offer.
I will look into the Arduno and price it out. I would also entertain any suggestions, or assistance in this task. Thanks, Patrick
Post a Comment