Repair CNC machine and convert from parallel to USB for Mac & Windows

toy cnc machine, can use only carving somethik little and pcb board make, but not more. why not install this to you hand milling machine lot better working and milling accurate wood. i know why not, you toy motors ot can work to milling machine, normal 10$ breakout board and ewery axis own cheap drivers and biggest 4-8A stepper motors can working milling machine, pcb boards, wood, aluminium, lot better can use many different material, and need lot lot biggest rails and ballscrews.

all real working softwares can use limit SW, linuxcnc normal most popular driver in hobby and factory, and mach3 can use all limit axis and e-stop,spindle,cooland pump, too easy simple. normal uses G-code not GRBL many year GRBL have wery old historic system and wery limited not can use all cnc potential newer. and slowly. and not can easy use normal cnc 4-9A motors need normal cnc, nema 17 not have normal cnc good need lot lot biggest motors and drivers, nema 17 have only laser or 3D printer toy motor, normal uses nema 34 motors.

why use arduino because today can buy usb or paraller card controllers were need connect only power and drivers traight less than 10$ usb maybe cost 20$ not need stupid build lot and soldening lot all. have limit SW,e-stop.slave axis,4-5 axis to motor, optoisolated, simple boards ready to use. no need program stupid arduino or make code. lot better, ofcourse if have money can buy mesa card, but paraller or usb breakout board have lot cheapen than arduino and all other, and lot better use not have drivers same board than all axes, this is only time and money waste. you need only old pc, install linuxcnc, connect breakout board and then motors drivers and power and motors to drivers, no need soldeninig or play than childrens arduino board.

bla bla bla bla

about those limit switches : did you checked if they need to be normally open (NO) or normally closed (NC) simple way to check with the button setup : hold the bottons for the limit switches down and run the machine , letting any of the buttons go stops the machine ? then you need normaly open switches

nice little machine , perfect size for making facepates and stuff like that , i have been looking intoo building a cnc rouer and a cnc milling machine , i would be able to build the mecanical side of it no problem , then i tried working with fusion 360 and kept hitting a wall
would need someone pointing out the way to work the program for just the things i need from it (when i try to draw out the part the first few times at least ) or theres not a lot of use for me in owning a cnc machine

Well done

I have a machine with LPT,
I did it on arduino uno, the frequencies are low. I also reworked the BSMCE04U board, it works. But now I stopped at the ESP32 GRBL, I am very pleased. There are reviews on the channel.

I know this is a long shot but; Do you know what the frame and the linear components are made frome? It seems like some kind of high density plastic?

Wegstr ?

@Markusfuller
Hello

Would it be possible to take pictures with the cover removed from the X and Y axis to see how and driven the carts to see if it is belts or screws or another system?

Thank you for your understanding.

Have you got a link to the boards etc?

Great video. Tell me what kind of engine is used in this machine as a spindle? Very similar to the stepper motor, but I have never seen such speed.

As of the datasheet one step moves the table by 0.004mm.
I assume they mean fullstep.
Because of 1.8 degree per step , then 200 steps (per revolution) move the axis (longitudinal) by 0.800mm.
If you want to move 1.000mmm you have to do 250 steps.
If the electronics makes 16 pulses to make one full step of rotational increment
this goes directly into the equation as follow
250x16=4000.
Where is the error in the calculation?

The z-axis on my design will differ much from the Wegstr CNC.
On MySensors Forum user Andrew has shown good pictures of PCB he milled
using a cheap, 300Watt, 24000rpm spindle with ER11/ER16 collet.
I know the disadvantages of crappy Chinese made stuff.
Had seen it on my printers a lot.
But reasonably good enough for me, if the z-axis is stiff enough.
topic / 8735 / cnc-pcb-milling / 718

Anybody else interested in making the machine?

Hi. Can you show the design of machine and how linear guides work?

You might have a look at bCNC as an alternative to UGS, i had nothing but issues with UGS, and bCNC solved all of them, worked out of the box, and has many more features.

Hi Markus, great video, that looks like a really useful little CNC. There looks to be some spare space in that compartment so you should consider putting a raspberry pi in there and then you can attach it either via wifi or cabled to your network. Another upside of using the pi is that you can very easily attach a pi camera and capture timelapse shots or start the cnc and monitor it remotely from another location.

Sweet. I am on this very mission atm. Need to convert a vfd to usb. Idk if you are happy with your software, just wanted to mention LinuxCNC. it's a debian based distro, fully featured. May be overkill for your needs idk what you've got in mind for your cnc. You've got two computers, why not three? Thanks for all the great content

I thought it was a Circuit board printer right up until near the end. It was very late when your watched the vid :/

Happy new haircut :)

Sorry to be pedantic, but 12V to 18V uses a boost converter not a buck converter. How much current does the spindle motor take I wonder ?

Well done with the upgrade. Did you get the limit switches working ?

Waiting for a comment about that $2 joke...

Most limit switches are only used for homing.

Love the hair cut :D

Having any UK paper money in the USA would be exceptionally surprising. AND, you've got a $2 bill. I haven't seen one of those up close in at least 25 years. Great you got stuff working.

Nice! I still have to get a DTI for vehicle work. Where did you get yours from? The 3D printer seems pretty damn accurate! :)

Hi Markus, great video! I went through a similar process on a CNC conversion I did to a Proxxon MF70 milling machine (unfortunately I didn't document the process). Protoneer also makes a shield for the Raspberry Pi, which was fun to set up because I ended up using the Pi as both the managing computer & controller.

I do wish the GRBL suite of software was in better shape. As you mentioned, there's the Universal Gcode Sender, which is probably the best. I was using bCNC for a while, but the interface is cluttered & slow. My next project is a CNC lathe conversion of an old Unimat using a TinyG controller, and they suggest using an in-browser software called "Chilipeppr".

Markus? Did you get a hair cut?