[Murray484] submitted his instructable on how to create a stepper motor controller from an old scanner. He removed the motor and controller from an old scanner then harvested the parts. He’s pretty much starting over, taking the ULN2003 chip from the scanner motor controller and putting it on a fresh board. He then wired it all up, installed the software and got it working. Finally, he built a container out of cardboard for it all. Though he could have made it nicer looking and used higher quality building materials, he was trying to make this a “green” project for the epilog laser cutter contest. He’s done a good job recycling, this could be pretty useful.
software link is broken
Not broken for me.
Read the article, google for TurboCNC.
So he’s making a laser cutter…using cardboard.
If he’s not careful, he’ll get the Darwin Award…
I laud him for the idea though – it makes since to use scanner or printer pieces for something like motor control.
Looks very easy with basic circuitry. I might have to order a few ULN2003’s to add to a Arduino for my tiny candy-fab that one day I’ll start making.
[GR0B]
I built a diamond etcing machine, can comeone help me create the software to run it. I can send you pics. I will pay someone to help me.
Email me at Cemeterymonument@aol.com
I have got the same issue, I’ve been ripping apart scanners, printers . Got lots of unipolar and bi polar motors and plenty of cool steel rods, but no uln chips. Are there any alternatives? I mean something must be controlling the stepper motors.
Haruaki, If you have been ripping apart printer you can reuse the existing circuitry. I did a hack a while ago with a dotmatrix printer where a just changed the gearing and tapped into the dotmatrix pins to power the head tip(Z axis).
Then I just printed fullstops and blank spaces which was my X axis and linefeeds for my Y axis.
Using the printers existing MLB I was able to use notepad as my software.
[GR0B]