[SPEEDRE]

Question one, My machine will be about fifty feet from my computer, down one flight will that be a problem with the controller being that far from its source?
Question two, What kind of power supply to use when powering steppers from an old printer? I'm not very good at electronic type stuff so please be kind to an electricly challenged boy. Thank you.

[Al_The_Man]

Question one, My machine will be about fifty feet from my computer, down one flight

Do you live over your shop?
Al.

[SPEEDRE]

Yes right below my bedroom where I do my cad . When my machine comes and I'm up and running it will be hard to run up and down all the time( lord knows I could use the exersize)

[Nono]

Find an older computer at a yard sale or goodwill and use that as your controller.. If you want to get real fancy set up a wireless network so you can access the files from either computer.. as for the motors we need more information on them like mfg. maybe a picture. I do not know anything other than what I read so my best recomendation is go to gecko.com and read some of ther white papers to start.. Or get a video camera and control it from upstairs. :idea:

[abasir]

Running 50ft of cable will add a lot of capacitance and will surely degrade your signal quality. Parallel cable (normally used to connect computer to the motor controller/driver) are not designed for long distance (IIRC about 5 meters max).

I have to agree with Nono, get a second machine and you'll have less headache (and exercise ) Depending on the software you'll use, very cheap used PC can be used.

[smarbaga]

i as well agree with abasir and Nono, you will be lucky to get a 25 foot cable to work on the ports of todays machines as they only spit out about 15 ma not like the 50 ma of years gone by, and the cable will cost you as much as an old p1 or pII machine.a network cable or floppy or a 64 - 256meg usb ram stick.
as for the power supplies use about the same size as the ones that came out of the printers that the motors were removed from. if they are the same printers there will be enough parts to build a few supplies... see the java dogs questions and answers on here about psu's.

[SPEEDRE]

OK for question no.1, I'll just have to put my computer in the workshop. As for the printer motors I trashed the rest of the machines. See I don't know about the inards of electronic stuff to know one piece from the other. Thanks guys.

[2muchstuff]

I don't know what size motors you are aiming for but the HP Laserjet III's and IV's have 100 oz-in motors in them. They will suffice if you are building a smaller cnc router.

[SPEEDRE]

All I can add is that one motor I have is a Fuji, SM55-2402-B, 12 volt, Coil( ohm sign) 30. And the other one is a Molon MMS 23018-2, 23LM-C343-P1. Can anybody identify these? Both have four wires and a plug.