My Build Log - now with more Drive Shaft!

[Tom Smith]

Mind you, it is only the power supply, shiny but otherwise low on excitement. I guess I can start work on designing an enclosure...

Not too sure where my motors are, and the grbl shield hasn't shipped yet, but I feel that both feet are on the CNC path! If only these first steps weren't...so...painfully...slow!

[Sven83]

Cool, my Power Supply also arrived today And I can feel your pain of waiting. Don't worry. Soon...

[JCPhlux]

My power supply was the last thing to arrive. I can tell you this it looks real sexxy when that is what you are waiting on.

[raymac]

Its fun to see other people as excited as I am about getting this built. I'm waiting on the inventables kits, everything else is sitting ready...

[sea2stars]

Yeah. Until I get a shipping date for the Inventables kit I may hold off ordering most components; not sure that I could handle the torture of the components just sitting there tempting me.

[MLange]

A4988 Stepper Drivers are here, steppers are on the way.

[Tom Smith]

Three shiny, NEMA-17 steppers arrived from Sparkfun (in a box big enough to hold 15 ) ... I'm one stepper shield away from a quick test! C'mon USPS!!!!

[Tom Smith]

OK, now I have the grblShield. Seems I will have to jury rig some kind of motor connector as, like others, I didn't order them from Synthetos. Hopefully the local electronics shop has some 4 pin 156 female connectors...

I feel like I am living Zeno's Paradox!

[DevinTX]

I did the same thing. I found the connector plugs here http://www.bigdaddy-enterprises.com/ele ... rs-156.htm

DevinTX

[Tom Smith]

Given that I have all the electronics, and none of the mechanical parts, save the steppers, I built an enclosure to hold it all, and more importantly keep my from mistakenly touching a live wire and barbecuing myself.

I couldn't find a ready-made box locally that would be an appropriate size, so I MacGyevered a case from a piece of pine shelving and a sawed-to-size case taken from an old Shuttle PC. I also re-used the power plug and switch from an old, burnt out PC power supply, as well as some of the cabling as it had some nice loom already. The stepper cables are a little long, but I wanted to be able to move stuff around if need be, so sacrificed neatness for convenience.

Finally, I couldn't find a surface mount USB connector I liked, so used a little sugru to grommet in a spare USB cable. I'd prefer to not have the cable hanging out, but will hopefully be able to find something by the time I get around. Once I have the whole system up and running (ie. I am able to cut) I am planning to make v2 of the enclosure out of a nice coloured acrylic.

I tried to leave space in case I had to add heat sinks to the grblShield chips, but from what I have read it seems that is not necessary.

Also, I've corrected the wiring inconsistency with the X connector, but it didn't make it into the photoset