I think the problem is a matter of power. If your motors have a lot of torque and take a lot of current then you need integrated drivers. These drivers can be pricey.
I bought a 4-axis driver board from hobbycnc.com because when I added up the cost of the components for a simple set of hardware, it wasn't much less than a professional kit with technical support. I think the current cost is around $100. Andy W. Jacobs wrote: > Hello All, > I am new, real new to the cnc world. I want to convert a small bench > top mill into a cnc machine. I have wanted to do this for a long time > and about a week or two ago, I found the linuxCNC.org web site. I have > not at this time found a computer I want to use and am looking for one. > > I have wanted to do this project for a long time. Because of that, > Years ago, I found 3 rather husky stepper motors that I thought would be > usable and bought them. They have been sitting on a shelf for a long > time. > > I looked at stepper drivers the other day and thought they were rather > expensive. A 3 axis unit was just over $300. That seems like a lot of > money to me. It is my understanding that the printer port of the > computer has 2 lines per axis. One line tells direction and the other > says to take a step now. That seems pretty elementary to me. It should > use a small micro controller, and 4 transistors for each axis. > > I had planed to belt drive the lead screws with a timing belt and use a > stepper motor that has 200 steps per revolution. This will give > resolution of about .0005 inch per step. I may half step, but I see no > reason to micro step. > > Am I missing something? Is there more here than I think? Is my concept > of the data on the printer port wrong? Any light on the situation would > be helpful > > Thanks > bill > > > > Mark Wendt (Contractor) wrote: >> Wondered if anyone has or is using the Keling KL-4030 stepper drives >> with EMC2. Any compatibility problems with EMC2 and the drives? >> >> Thanks, >> Mark >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> SF.Net email is sponsored by: The Future of Linux Business White Paper >> from Novell. From the desktop to the data center, Linux is going >> mainstream. Let it simplify your IT future. >> http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/8857-50307-18918-4 >> _______________________________________________ >> Emc-users mailing list >> Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users >> >> >> >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > SF.Net email is sponsored by: The Future of Linux Business White Paper > from Novell. From the desktop to the data center, Linux is going > mainstream. Let it simplify your IT future. > http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/8857-50307-18918-4 > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > > > -- Andy PGP Key ID: 0x67090A54 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: The Future of Linux Business White Paper from Novell. From the desktop to the data center, Linux is going mainstream. Let it simplify your IT future. http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/8857-50307-18918-4 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
