Planet CNC Motion Controler

Hey guys...

I've decided to start building a rather large CNC Mill a little while back...
Pulled the trigger and got most of the extruded aluminum frame, as well as some 1.5" plate that I had a friend make me a nice T-Slot work surface.

Work area is a bit overkill...
X = 40"
Y = 20"
Z = 18"

Definitely not featherweight that's for sure !!!
To keep everything in check and movement fluid i sprung for some "muscle"...
Using 4x 1600oz NEMA34 Frame motors with encoders as well as decent drivers ( 2HSS1108H - main deciding factor for me was... no need for external power supply for drives! )

Either way, kids have it set into their head that it should be a 3D printer as well.. so... yeah... some further "planning" required!

I currently have the Smooth Stepper USS but I haven't found/seen any info on functionality as 3D printing...
I did stumble across Planet CNC's MK3 9Axis USB module claiming to support 3D printing as well as making chips

Any ideas or input on this ??

With the smooth stepper you must be running Mach3 .
Slic3r will output mach3 format so in theory you can use ti.
You would need to add a hot end and an extruder plus a stepper driver and power supply for the extruder.
You could not heat your bed so you would need a separate heated bed if you wanted to print ABS
You would not be happy with the results.
Your machine will be big and slow and a printer needs to be small and fast.
You would probably be cheaper and better to buy a printer kit for the kids.
Would you really want them to do 4 hour print job on your router/mill???

Actually its not that slow as I'm running acme lead screws and the big NEMA34s do make even heavy things move quite fast.
Currently playing around with a hybrid 4/5 axis design...