Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Dreaming of a CNC Something...

I decided I needed these stepper motors... It started when I saw the instructables page for
Easy-to-Build-Desk-Top-3-Axis-CNC-Milling-Machine nbsp;. I started dreaming of ways to make my own PCBs with SMD components. I am not a very patient guy when it come to hobbies and experiments, so mailing off eagle files and expecting the boards to find me on the boat just doesn't sound plausible.

I started the search for a CNC mill with a resolution for SMD parts, then I discovered the inkjet transparencies and photo-resist so there was no need for a mill.... but I keep forgetting that part.

I found the steppers in an electronics place accross on the mainland from Penang, in Butterworth, Destiny Electronics. Prices are not that good, but he has lots of stuff in stock! When I went for the photo sensitive board stock (booth single sided and double sided Kinsten- from Tiawan) I picked up a couple stepper motors too.
So this is the test setup.

Clockwise:
Stepper is a 17PM-J319 fairly popular in the surplus market but very little in the way of documentation. I believe it is a 1.8 degree, 8 volt, 6 wire bi-polar (could wire it as uni-polar I think too)
Ardunio UNO clone, davilino from Seeed Studios
L298 motor driver fresh from China
And last a LM317 based 3 amp variable power supply also fresh from China surplus
These I picked up at the parts store here in Penang so no great price there either. Places like tinydeal.com and e-bay have lots of these making me wish Paypal would ship to Malaysia. But then I'd be broke.

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