17. Machine design

Group assigment

Refer to the following link for the group assignment.

Individual Assignment

I was a part of the electronics team who was working on the programing G code, testing the components and work on the needed soldering and wiring for the project.

materials and components used:

1- An Arduino Uno and a PC to upload the firmware.

2- Bipolar stepper driver A4988

3- Bipolar stepper motor with a dupont connector with 4 pins.

4- A power supply to power up the motors (12 volts was needed).

5- Arduino CNC Shield (Version 3.0 used).

hardware

Stepper Motor

A stepper motor is a motor controlled by a series of electromagnetic coils. The center shaft has a series of magnets mounted on it, and the coils surrounding the shaft are alternately given current or not, creating magnetic fields which repulse or attract the magnets on the shaft, causing the motor to rotate. This link has some useful information & codes.

Arduino CNC Shield

The CNC sheild used in this project supports 4 axis X, Y, Z , and A which is a A-Can duplicated with any of the axis.

Specifications:

• driver Runs on 12-36V DC

The sheild is the PCB is the PCB that will control the stepper motors. This PCB has been used and it due to it features as it is compatible with the GRBL firmware. It has endstops and relays output, and support the speed control by PWM.