[Dazza]

Hi,

Anyone from the Burdekin area south of Townsville,:wave:

Darren.

[Stewey]

NO, but we're not far from the South Burnett region- still about 900km south of you though!

[oliverthepig]

Hi, I live in Charters Towers which isn't that far in the scheme of things.

Probably can't help much though, I've been aiming on building a pcb mill,

I've got the 3 axis electronics working (using the open source PICSTEP's)
driving 3 stepper motors.

I've been stripping printers and photocopiers for a few years now getting bearings and linear rails to use.

I bought a small drill/mill to use to make bits, by hand.

Are you trying to build a machine?

[Dazza]

Hi oliverthepig, Stewey,

Those PICSTEP's work really well they haven't missed a beat or should I say step, I decided to build some good-quality controllers and a cheap basic mill to learn from, then once I've learnt how to use the thing properly build something half decent.

The guide rails and bearings were salvaged from printers and photocopiers as well as the steppers, it actually works quite well far more accurate than I expected, I need to build another PICSTEP controller as I'll be using two stepper to drive the X axis on my next mill so I think I'll see if I can't mill the PCB on this little beast, instead of using toner transfer as I did on the last three controllers I built.

Darren.

[epineh]

Hi Darren, I was sure I posted on this thread but it musn't have stuck...

Anyway I am about 60k's south of Cairns, still a little way away but it is great to see some more people doing CNC in the far north

Myself I am just finishing my first router after two years, and have plans for more, a PCB drilling table made using printer linear encoders is kinda started, I have been building my own servo drives based on open source boards (Elm Chan and DSPIC) and plan to get into that side of things for a large machine that I want to build.

Keep in touch.

Russell.