Millstrap requirements?

Still trying to wrap my mind around this. I want to convert a Shapeoko 2 to 3D printing.

There's not much on the wiki: [reprap.org]

I've gotten past the obvious:

* Extruder --- got a Greg's Wade Reloaded Extruder
* Hot End --- got a J-Head Mk V-BV 1.75mm hotend from hotends.com
* Stepper Motor --- NEMA 17 motor w/ a body 40mm or shorter (62 oz 1.7a model?) --- CanaKit Stepper Motor with Cable

And have also sourced:

* Kapton tape
* Azteeg X5 mini 32-bit

What else do I need?

* High Temperature Wire --- where does one get this? What else is it used for? Must it be 20 AWG?

Is it absolutely necessary that these connections be soldered? No option for using a terminal block (or something else?)

Since I want to print PLA, I'm thinking I should just get a pair of 12V fans and wire them up to cool the hot-end and electronics.

Obviously I need some sort of printing bed as well --- planning on just using two stacked sheets of glass to start.

Anything else?

Hi @WillAdams I'm looking for the same solution...hopefully someone will respond to our posts. Thanks....let me know if you find a solution.

I added a link to the millstrap page: [www.shapeoko.com] --- it's a fairly compleat and well-documented conversion. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

The copyright / license on the Shapeoko wiki would allow someone to copy it over to the reprap wiki w/ suitable attribution.

Hi Will...thanks for the quick response. I guess I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I've read where the BBB microprocessor is being configured for 3d printer work using free LinuxCNC with speciality cape boards which are rather expensive. I see where Stepperonline.com offers a 5 Axis CNC Breakout Board Interface For their ST-V2Stepper Motor Drivers for $12.11 . They say this stepper controller can be directly controlled by the PC via MACH3, EMC2, KCAM4, etc. parallel-control CNC software. As we know EMC2 is LinuxCNC software. I'm looking to learn what is needed in the interface between a microcontroller like the BBB or pcDuino that are Linux based, or the Smoothieware based boards and the 5 Axis CNC board from Stepperonline.com. I'm looking to use either of those microcontroller/software packages to drive a SCARA arm printer without the added expense of the speciality I/O boards to interface to the motors. Stepperonline.com is China based, and they were responsive but unable to advise me on this subject as described above. I'm hoping someone in the forums has looked at this adaptation and can give some guidance. Thanks...TP

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2014 09:15PM by simspeed.

I'm afraid I'm mystified by the electronics.

I simply replaced my Arduino/gShield w/ an all-in-one Azteeg X5 mini Smoothieboard and it ``just worked''.

probably all I'm looking for except that I need more than 4 stepper controllers.

AIUI, the x5 supports 5 stepper drivers (though one has to wire up one of them off-the-board) --- one can also double up the motors on at least one axis --- that's what I'm doing for the Y-axis on my SO2.