I have been hanging around here for a while now doing a LOT of reading and listening. I found most of my answers in the archives exept for the how it all goes together. I'm not an electrical/electronics wiz but know enough to be dangerous. I'm having trouble i've got all of the table things planned out except for how i'm going to drive the steppers. i don't know where to start.
I have been playing around with Turbo CNC I get the Gcode, easy enough, just tell the machine what you want it to do. The samples are really helpful.
I really want to understand the electronics and how it interfaces before I get too $eriou$. So......this is the way I understand it; software on my pc sends a signal through the parallel port to a controller card, the card interpets that signal,then tells the ? axis which way to go and how far.
I let all of the smoke out of my parts so I'm starting over again with some salvaged steppers from an Okidata 3410 dot matrix printer. Would some one be so kind as to give me the 8th grade science explanation of how I can make one axis turn with out letting out the smoke? The steppers are 5V almost 1amp. I took readings on the coils and found it is a unipolar 6 wire.
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-----|-----------| | ___________|
| -- | |
| ______ _|___ |-----------12
12 ----------| |______| |_____| |
| |_______________________|
| __
| | |
-----|-----------| |
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The two center taps come out to 12 ohms and the other four come out to 6. The way I have been using it is to use the center taps for +5 voltage, and ground the others to produce a step. I can do it with jumper wires but cant seem to get the interface in the electronics to work. I am using a pc power supply to power the motor. Thanks in advance,
Whitney