Low cost CNC mill/repstrap from old printers & scanners parts

I am currently making a low cost CNC mini-mill from old printers and scanners:


The X axis is made from an Epson stylus color 400 printer
Y axis is made from an old scanner and Z axis is made with square aluminum tubes and an M6 threaded rod bought in an hardware store.
The steppers motors (one on each sides) came from Epson printers:


The Z axis slide is made with nylon screws :


The electronics is also mostly made from salvaged parts:


The drill power supply is an old laptop transformer, the steppers power supply, steppers drivers and opto end stops sensors came from epson stylus color 400 & 600 series printers. I just had to make the electronics to translate the step and dir signals from the PC to appropriates signals for the stepper drivers using salvaged atmega48 microcontrollers, it also handles the opto end-stops.


At this point, the mechanics is too weak for milling, I need to make it more rigid, but for a repstrap only, it's strong enouth as it is.

I use EMC2 to drive the electronics and inkskape with gcodetools to make the G-code.
For the moment I spent 87€ on it.
Once I have a working cnc mill, I will be able to cut the parts to make an extruder and convert the mill to a repstrap.

Future improvements :
Add a guide on X axis for more rigidity.
Make a correct Y axis (currently it is mostly double sided tape and polystyrene foam).
Build a PWM driver with speed feedback and stall detection for the drill.
Build the plastic extruder.
Make an arduino board to drive the electronics with reprap software.

I have improved the X axis rigidity by adding a second rod.
I also reduced the size of the tool stand to improve X axis travel, now I have a travel of 270mm.

Y axis:

I used an old guillemot scanner for the base, the brass sleeves and the second rod came from Agfa snapscan 1212u scanners. The moving plate is the light guide of a broken 17" LCD monitor.

For the moment, the stepper motor is quite weak, and there is some play due to the gears, I will replace them later.

The spindle and the spindle controller :



The controller stabilize the speed using some kind of proportional-integral algorithm, there is still some glitches, but it do the job :


There's also a safety that will trig the emergency stop if the tool speed fall below 2000rpm.

... first some questions ...

- how fast is your spindle?
- are you cooling when milling, and with what?
- which types and sizes of millbits do you have?

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

The spindle run at 15000RPMs, 18000RPMs max
I don't use any coolant, it doesn't seams to cause problems with polycarbonate :


I use a 1.6mm diameter mill bit (dremel N°113)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2011 11:34AM by Petrus.

... try to mill with a water-soap mixture as coolant (you can apply it with a paint brush) if you want clear cutting surfaces ...

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Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

I've made a chuck and attached it to a DC motor salvaged from a photocopier to transform the mill into a vertical lathe. I hope to make my own hot ends with this :

My first useful milled circuit :


It's an adapter for the SMD thermocouple driver I will use to read the temperature of the extruder and heated bed.

I made the engraving tool from a broken carbide drill bit :


For leveling the board I use the electrical contact between the mill bit and the copper on the board as a Z probe and I adjust the nuts on the corners :

Hi!

I'm not an expert at electronics, so maybe you can help me through this step. So I have an arduino. I have the same Epson board as you with the two UDN2917 Full-bridge PWM motor driver chips. How do I interface the two? I don't think from your pics you removed the drivers and built a new board? That would be over my head.

So my computer controls the 3D printer via USB to the Arduino. The Arduino interfaces with the Epson's PWM motor drives. Feedback comes back to the Arduino from the Epson's salvaged opto sensors.

Am I missing something within this section?

I mean not getting to building the base or the extruder. Just the controlling of the motors, opto sensors.

Thanks

Max

---------------------------------

I now see that your driver chips are different from my Epson board. Mine are square surface mount and yours looks like they were in sockets and you just removed the chips?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2011 05:09PM by disneytoy.

The arduino send commands to the stepper drivers with 2 lines : dir and step.
The epson stepper drivers needs 6 lines to drive one steppers, so you can't directly plug the arduino to this drivers, or you will need a total of 24 lines for the 4 axis.
If you can't have 4 cheap microcontrollers to convert the 2 signals from the arduino to the 6 lines signal needed for the epson drivers, it will be simpler and cheaper to buy stepper drivers that are already compatible.

I built a leveling platform with glass bed for perfect flatness and mounted the extruder, now it begins to looks like a repstrap :

the building size is 230x230mm

Hello
please show circuit all about this project and process to make Low cost CNC mill/repstrap from old printers & scanners parts.
example The drill power supply, the steppers power supply, steppers drivers and opto end stops sensors and the electronics to translate the step and dir signals from the PC to appropriates signals for the stepper drivers using salvaged atmega48 microcontrollers.
Where dose I can to search circuit printer ?(epson)

thank

Stepper driver translator schematic and source code :
[schematic]
[program]

You can find the same steppers drivers in an Epson stylus 460 or 660 if I remember well but if you can't have microcontrollers for cheap, it may be more economic to buy stepper drivers with built-in translator.

The steppers power supplies are salvaged from Epson printer I don't have their schematic, the drill power supply is a 12V/4A adapter.

Hello
I will try to make.

Thanks very much

is that handmade?

Heeey Petrus,

this looks great!! I love this idea. I was so enthousiastic after seeing this that I looked for epson stylus printers everywere.
I got one epson stylus 600 with 2 good steppers: em258 and 257
But I also opened a lot of other printers that had crapy 7.5 degree steppers or to low torque (epson stylus 680)

petrus what steppers dit you use and from what printers did they come?
where did you salvage the atmega48 microcontroler from?
is LB1845 the stepper driver you are using, are these the boards between the translator and the power supply?
I think I have two Allegro A2917 how should I use these if I want to build a reprap pursa mendel?
what electronics should I use (gen7, R2C2, RAMPS, Sanguinololu, arduino)??

so many questions!

thank you for sharing this project with us!

mad-e
(kroeliebuschie)

I use EM 257 and EM-258 steppers too, I found them in several printers ( Stylus 400, 440, 460, 600, 640)
The atmega48 comes from automobile sensor I salvaged at my workplace.

Hi i salvaged em-440 and em.469 but i can't find the datasheet. No more chances on shinano's website. Do you have any tip to help me find their specs ?

there is a guy with a blog with these steppers:
[smallchaoslab.blogspot.fr]

maybe you can mail the minebea company or the astrosyn company for information

let me know if you have the specs so maybe I can also salvage those steppers

I've dismantled an old Epson PM-2000C printer and have the EM 257 and EM 258

I've kept the Power supply and Logic board. The control chips are

A2917 - DUAL FULL-BRIDGE PWM MOTOR DRIVER

Data Sheet [pdf1.alldatasheet.com]

How can I hack the board to supply logic for control?

mad-e on the forum has the same drivers : [forums.reprap.org]

Hey - I can confirm em-400, 401, 402, 403 & 440 steppers do work : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48JPsd_AiAY

Salvaged from epson c62 & stylus photo 895

hi , i read that you use the ΕΜ-257 from epson printers ...

i want to control the em-267 , but i dont know how , i want to make it to move from one to the other side with very very slow speed ...

you know if i can find something in the market that i can use ? (i told for a full solution because i dont have idea how to make electronics)

thanx !!!

dear i am impressed from your invention ,

will you sell it, then i am interested to buy it

tell me about programming, and operating system for the same

thanks and regards

I too have started a similar project. Can you explqin and show detailed photos if possible on how you raise and lower your extruder or cutting mount. My build is a little different but i want to try and apply that concept to raising and lowering my print bed. Thanks

Here is a picture of a mock up I did. I'm just having a hard time trying how to lift the print bed with 2 precision hardend rods and a pulley or drive screw I want to try and use one motor if possible
.any help would greatly be appreciated.

I took a picture of one side of the Z axis, the treaded rod is dirrectly attached to the stepper motor :

Thanks for the pic. Any other info on your build would greatly be appreciated. I took apart two Epson like yours. A quick step by step would help me and many others have an interest. Thanks again It's nice to finally meet someone that is showing a build out of recycled materials. It let's people that don't have money but want to learn 3d printing a chance to get involved.

What is the chuck you are using with the spindle in this picture? [forums.reprap.org]