ScottCNC

Page last updated 04 Oct 2012, by Scott O'Brien. 1 reply CNC, eshapeoko, grbl, makerslide, mill, shapeoko, smoothie, stepp, stepper motor

October 2012

I have just ordered an eShapeOko kit which provides all the mechanical components for a 3-axis CNC mill.

eShapeOko is based on the ShapeOko. Both are built using the MakerSlide extrusion.

My intention is to drive it with 4 stepper motors: one each for the X and Z axes, and two for the Y axis. These motors will be driven by a stepper driver chip. Currently I am awaiting an A4988 based driver board from Pololu for testing purposes.

These driver boards (one per motor) will receive a step pulse and a direction signal from the mbed which is running the Smoothie firmware. This software takes in movement instructions (in the form of G-codes) and converts them to the step and direction signals.

In preparation, I have succeeded in getting the Smoothie firmware onto the mbed and running and I have written up the steps I followed to get this far here: Smoothie for mbed.

1 comment on ScottCNC:

John Harris
06 Jan 2013

I am on a similar project called Sprintbed, which is 'mbed for Reprap printers'. See http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:26179. Now I will try your port of Smoothie.

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