Do a google for mach 3 or mach 4, its a software and control system for cnc machines, from ultra simple to very complex.
It does assume you have a little knowledge.
I'm developing one right now. Work area roughly 35x40x15cm, made of thick plywood. Utilizing fully supported 16mm rods, linear bearing slides and 16x4 trapezoidal thread drive screws.
I'd say that for a person with electronic engineering background (as opposed to mechanical engineering) this goes pretty hard. I've designed a step motor power driver board utilizing TB6560 IC (the same one as in sh!tty chinese cnc drivers that you can buy on ebay for $40, but properly applied without unnecessary cost cutting).
I'm also developing my own power driver incorporating a BJT H-bridge and chopper current regulation.
Your options generally depend on where do you live. If you earn in either Euro or USD your in good situation. Otherwise (like me: mid-eastern Europe) in most situation shipping costs and prices of new parts are kind of prohibitive.
So the options for drive are following:
-chinese board (qualityn not controlled, f*ckups often reported) - based on TB6560
-your own TB6560AHQ board (tricky, because the ic has extremly stupid pin arrangement which makes proper routing power traces hard even on 2 layer board)
-Allegro Microsystems chip (like A3977)
-Trinamic chips (interesting set of features, but kinda hard to get and expensive)
-discrete solution utilizing discrete power stage (n-n mosfet, n-p mosfet, n-p bipolar) and some microcontroller + some 7400/4000 logic stuffs
Stepper motors generally come in 2 varieties unipolar and bipolar. While unipolar ones are easier to drive can be accomplished with low-side switched only, which is much easier than h-bridge they have typically around 40% less torque than bipolar ones. Bipolar motors need a dual H-bridge (so 8 power devices total) but have better performance. Nice thing to know is that ANY unipolar stepper can be driven by bipolar driver, but not the other way around.
For a domestic/hobby cnc machine motors with roughly 1 newton*meter of rated holdinh torque should be fine. You can get those out ouf various industrial automation machinery. People often sell those in online aution sites (at least in Poland)
If you have any questions I'dbe happy to answer
**broken link removed**
---------- Post added at 15:10 ---------- Previous post was at 14:40 ----------
http://www.piclist.com/techref/io/stepper/linistep/index.htm
http://pminmo.com/
I've purchased 2 brass lead nuts (38mm outer diameter, IIRC 35mm length), costed about $15 a piece. I've also ordered 3 or 4 (can't remember right now) lead nuts of the same dimensions made of tough plastic. IIRC i've paid about $20 for all pieces+shipping. The idea is to use plastic parts for alignment, for eventual screwups to happen on plastic parts, instead of more expensive brass parts.I'm developing one already, what do you use for lead nut ?
I've purchased 2 brass lead nuts (38mm outer diameter, IIRC 35mm length), costed about $15 a piece. I've also ordered 3 or 4 (can't remember right now) lead nuts of the same dimensions made of tough plastic. IIRC i've paid about $20 for all pieces+shipping. The idea is to use plastic parts for alignment, for eventual screwups to happen on plastic parts, instead of more expensive brass parts.
Problem with leaqdscrews is machining. In Poland you can buy 1m of 16x4 trapezoidal threaded rod for around $6, but machining of rod ends costs upward of $30 per screw. I ended up grinding them by myself using improvised lathe-like construction (electric drill+bed made out of mdf+some needle bearings+elastic coupling made of rubber garden-type hose and a used sparkplug from my car + some hose clamps) using angle grinder with very thick disc. I'm not happy with the results, but I think they're enough.
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