CNC Compatibility

I've lurked around for quite some time now, after a short stint at building a reprap using lumber and drawer slides.

Personally, I think we might see better progress if we conform more closely to CNC standards rather than re-designing the wheel. It would also allow people who already have CNC (like myself) to focus on the extruder and utilise existing hardware for everything else.

Electronics:
Most stepper-based CNC machines are controlled via LPT port and a simple chip stepper controller. The flow-rate on reprap is almost identical to spindle speed PWM on CNC, just scaled down.
For those not proficient at soldering, they could skip these steps and get a professional stepper controller.


I suppose it would need special drivers to control, but the rest should be compatible as is.

Hi! Long time no see!

You might want to follow what nophead is doing at the hydraraptor.blogspot.com if you already have CNC. He's doing some brilliant work in printing HDPE.

The problem is modern PCs don't have an LPT port and you can't use a USB to parallel converter to step steppers.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

... my CNC-controller has a RS232-port, what's more suitable for actual PC's which have a Serial port or over a USB-to-Serial-converter-cable.

On the other side i have some discrete stepper-drivers with CLK/DIR-input, which i could wire to a parallel port, but it's much better to drive them with a microcontroller-board, which has an USB- or serial interface.

So i want an open and freely reconfigurable interface-layer between the host-software and different stepper-drivers or CNC-controllers.

I know, the PIC's and Arduinos do this task already, but why not rewrite the output so you can reprap with any hardware you have at hand?

Viktor

Hi

I have built an Arduino shield that has 2 25 way D type sockets mimicking 2 LPTS.

Still testing with standard hardware that accepts MACH3 CNC commands. So far so good and very simple.

I believe Ian Adkins (Bits from Bytes) is working on something similar that may be available

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Regards

Ian

Yes i hope to post information in the next few days it is designed to work with both Arduino or Parallel port or any other uC for that matter

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Ian
[www.bitsfrombytes.com]

Oh yeah, been busy with other projects. And work. Things tend to drift around, I might have to finally give a shot at making that darn extruder.