I am a bit of an arduino lover myself, however I have several serial/parallel connected stepper controllers. Having built two cnc machines I have a large investment in technology and controllers - is it possible to run a similar program through your serial connector right to the stepper controller?

Any thoughts?

I am a huge fan of your work Sandy, I am determined to build a machine for my self! Thank you for making it so approachable.

Well, the CNC world covers everything that you have covered. Let me draw a simple picture:

At the core you start with GCode which comes from either a drawing/model that is converted by a program or if you prefer, just punched out line by line in notepad. The computer then takes that code and uses a controller program like Mach3 which takes your GCode and the variables specific to your control system (steps, ballscrew pitch, belt reduction, intended maximum speed and acceleration) and outputs through a parallel/usb port a series of pulses - 5v high/low signals to your controllers. Each pulse group specifies a step command and direction. So in essence the hardware is not smart at all.

All of the brains are in the computer and the controllers take a step/direction signal and move the motor as needed.

If you have ever looked at the range of stepper controllers there is a VAST assortment of cheap and expensive solutions that are very flexible. I am curious if there might be a method of taking your model and modifying it for different setups.

It might just be smarter to take and Arduino and modify the command/direction pulses to interface with my stepper controllers - I am pretty sure it has been done a thousand time already.

My thought process is, if I could open up the usage of more mainstream stepper controller/motor combinations then you/I could use more powerful systems. (In a previous project I used Gecko 203v's to push 1200 Oz/in (8.474 Nm) steppers using 72V DC and 4-8 amps of current to achieve some incredible performance).

I am really just putting some ideas out there and trying to show parallels between what you have made and typical computer based homemade CNC Systems. I am going to build one of these, but having experienced an extremely slow cnc machine, and spending the money to build a second quicker system I know what it is like to go from an 8 hour run time per part (in this case drawing) to a 2 hour run time (with the quicker machine). Tuning the inertia/acceleration/drag characteristics would be an entirely different situation as well.....

I will research what kind of commands the arduino sends to the shield and see if there is some similarities between that and high/low stepper controllers....then maybe I can build some kind of hybrid system. Perhaps I can put a program together computer side and take some of the conversion processing off of the arduino?

Thanks for taking the time to chat...so many possibilities - my kids are just getting to the age of robots and I want to start getting more hands on... and I also feel it is about time I give something back to the community as well.