CNC Controller Board

In this post I'll make a short description of the CNC controller boards that I'm making available for you to download and use to control your own CNC. I'm posting 3 version of the same board, but only the first one has been really tested and has been working inside my CNC Control Box for a long time now (see my previous post Homemade CNC:TheMaker1). I'm 99% sure that the other boards will work too because they only have minor changes. I'll explain them to you in a few moments.

All the boards are made in Kicad. The design of the boards is based on the CNC3AX designs, but it uses other components that I had available at the moment that I made the board for my CNC. I advise you that I just wanted to get my CNC running, so I didn't make any careful selection of the most appropriate components and I didn't make the math to calculate the best values for the resistors. I just made it with the components that I had laying around. The boards design can be split in three parts:

1. Isolation - it has Vishay's 6N137 optocouplers to isolate the parallel port from the rest of the circuit;
2. Drivers - the ST Microelectronics' L297 drive the motors in unipolar mode (if you prefer bipolar you can change the schematics and boards at your will);
3. Power Interface - a bunch of Vishay's IRL510 N-channel FETs working as switches controlled by the L297 Drivers.

(Click the photo for better resolution in Picasa Photostream)

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Homemade CNC: TheMaker1

Hi! In the following lines I'll present a project that has taken a very long time to complete: my homemade CNC machine. From the first tests and tryouts with various materials to the actual machine 2 years have passed. More important stuff always made me delay the development of the CNC. However, I estimate that the total amount of time was 3 weeks. I think CNCs are a big challenge for anyone since it involves a lot of mechanical, electronics and computer engineering (although we can bypass the computer engineering part by using available software). It was a challenge for me, with lots of frustration along the way because of my lack of skill to make the parts with the few tools I had, but now I can happily say "Mission Accomplished!":D.

(Click the photo for better resolution in Picasa Photostream)

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