Yes i know another one...
Decided after building and playing with my laser to build a scanner. i built to one out of a speaker fun but not what i am looking for. on to the main point.
I want to say first that i was planning on using stepper motors. i know they are not as fast or have any feed back but as i have a controller for them all ready i mine as well go that route. the controller i have is on my cnc machine, which is also home built. Wanted to know how much can i expect from these can i get general shapes? or would i be better off going back to pager motors or speakers.
So all i need is new motors and then mount them up and i have all the pc interface ready.
HYBRID STEPPER MOTOR | AllElectronics.com these are the motors i use on my machine and they go under no load fast. other than that is there any thing else that i might need? by shapes i want to go as far as letters i dont care if they have to have that connect line. i want to get it to say "HI".
I searched around forums and i found a few but i never saw how complex they could go if at all. And if any one hase ever used a controller of a CNC machine.
Its okay if its "kinda" Sloppy looking as long as it can be read.

Well, from what I have read, stepper motors are not sufficient enough to give you any type of graphic (unless you wanna spen big $$). I have also read that the corners they produce are rounded and you can not get a perfect 90 degree corner.

Here is a pic i found on google.. it shows the output of a stepper motor laser scanner...



If that quality is what you are shooting for, it should work out fine, if you want better quality, I suggest the SP20 (scan pro 20), which as the name suggests can scan as 20kpps which is more then enough for simple graphic of simple animation!

Yes that will do!@! now from what i am looking at besides from the motors and my controller setup btw it uses a db25 port what software or should i just use my mach 3 cnc software and see what happens? Are any of the programs able to have there pins changed. i am almost willing to bet my pins are different than theres. Thanks for that image.(full of hope) I did lots of google searching but never thought to due images. This looks so much better than my speaker one.
Ohh another question would i want to go smaller or larger motors? kinda forgot to think about the size.

Smaller means less mass to have to move, you want your scanners to be able to move as fast as possible.

Also, the CNC controller probably isn't designed to run up to the speeds required for the scanners.

i built the controller my self and i will say that it can move fast but almost all stepper motor controllers run almost the same. the only add on i have onto my board are limit switches. but other than that they run quick. i have them drive a threaded rod and before i calibrated the machine they could travel over 20in in less than 4 sec and revers direction and go the other way with no lag in-between.(that broke my machine, Thus the limit switches were born. but they can be disabled at any time. so as far as small goes i can go smaller but some of the smaller motors have a higher degree of motion aka these ones have a 1.8 degree step where as the small ones have a 2.7.

. so as far as small goes i can go smaller but some of the smaller motors have a higher degree of motion aka these ones have a 1.8 degree step where as the small ones have a 2.7

Yes but you want the motors to be able to scan in one direction then in a split second start scanning the other direction. It must be able to scan in between steps very quickly.... if that makes sense

What controller software should i use? is there any that work with stepper motors?

I really wouldn't know, If mach 3 has a speed control you can use that to boost the speed of the motors... but I don't see how you can make words with them. All the software people use on this forum use dac (digital to analogue) cards, so the galvos are running off the sound cards from the pc's. I still think you will be better off with a SP20... less hassle, time and people can help you out!

Well then i think i am going to go the path of no return...
Like i said this is only going to coast me a few bucks for new motors.
I have yet to see anyone ever try this, so for the sake of all noobs i will get this thing to work even if it means writing all the G code by hand! And by work i mean, what ever it gives i will try to enhance it and make several videos so others can see once and for all what stepper motors can or cannot do.

I've done this a few years back with a microcontroller, and programmed all the steps directly. There is no software available (that i know of) that does lasershows on stepper motors.

Steppers have a very limited resolution so forming more than a few letters is difficult without so much flicker that the image becomes hard to read.

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HOLY SH** That looks great!@! wow okay what software did you use? How did you make the blank spot in between? I was starting to think this might just come out looking like a Spiro graph but this gives me a lot of drive to get mine up and running. I know some of you are going to say it looks like crap but for about 20$ that looks great. What motors did you use? did they have a 1.8 deg of step or a 2.7? where you using full steps or micro steps?

+1 to your rep

Thats blanking, its where the actual laser turns on and off. It would probably be controlled by the same microcontroller for the amp set for the stepper motors.. correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, would you be able to show me the parts needed in order to make a cnc? I know what I'm doing, just need help finding compatable stuff, etc... if you can pm me a list of parts you need (hardware only, not parts!).. I would really appreciate it!

Hope that helped -Adrian

sure thing um got skype it might be a bit faster to answer all you questions over voice.
you can build a good machine with a 20 x 20 cutting area for under 100$
you say hardware only you mean no electronics or just want help making an x y z table? like i said i use skype. Just search my name kiyoukan

no i meant electronics... not software! If that is possible, for under $100 I want to make it! Downloading skype now.... internet is slow tho.. dont know if voice will work out, but ill see.

Kk talk to you soon. must be one slow download.

Keep in mind, those pics Mario took are most likely long exposures, you would be able to see them scanning that in real life.

Thats cool. i just want to know the motors he used. i am not looking for high grade that will be much later. this is me getting my feet wet.

LOADING..... god!

I used motors and drive circuits from old floppy drives, I'm sure you could get better performance if the motors were driven harder. I had to program each step manually in PBASIC to the microcontroller, there was no interface or anything.

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Wow i got lots of old floppy drives heck i will try those first as that make this free then.

they came from 5.25" drives, you have to make sure the motor is the right kind since newer drives have really cheap motors that won't work once you take them out of the little holder

hmm. i got only newer drives the oldest i got is from a windows 95 cpu.
So as far as motors for this do i want a 1.8 or a 2.7 deg of step? I take it that i want to get the smaller motor around the size of 1 x 1.

You want to get a motor with the smallest steps possible, this will give you more usable resolution for the output images. Also, see the red grid I made in the pics? That's about the only lines I could create. Although it can also do slanted lines by sending step pulses to both motors at the same time. But they can't just go anywhere like galvos.

Thanks so much for the help. i look forward to posting my results of this build.
i must say i would never recommend doing this unless you already have all the stuff.