I am a senior computer engineering major and in order to graduate I have to do a senior design project. For mine I decided to build a CNC Router with a friend. However, neither my friend nor I have much mechanical skill/knowledge.
Since we are Computer Engineers the focus of our project will be the software/control system. So we need a very simple(and hopefully inexpensive) design for the mechanical aspect of the project. I was thinking that the easiest way to do this would be to buy something like this:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...510&lpage=none
In order to turn it into a CNC router I was hoping to set up something that could move the wood on the x/y plane over the surface of the table. From my initial research it seems like stepper motors would be the way to go.
I have questions for those of you who are more knowledgeable about this subject than I am:
1. How feasible would it be to build something that could move a smallish block of wood over the table? I have 2-3 months to do this.
2.Would it be accurate enough? Keep in mind since this is for a project it only has to be accurate enough to demo when it is due. It doesn't need to be very high quality(I was thinking something that could rout blocky text or simple patterns would be good enough).
3. The motors need to be controllable with a microcontroller. Do you have any recommendations on what I should use for this?
4. Also is there anything out there that is premade - as in the mechanical parts are all there it would just need a control system/software? My professor said that if we could buy a premade one and just focus on the electrical and software side of it that would be ok.
If anyone here can help me or offer me advice I would be extremely grateful.