-Clockworks
...Grasshopper Clockwork
...Inertia Clockwork
.........Gear Cutting
.........Sample Gears
.........Rotary Table
.........Parts Disassembled
.........Escapement Revealed
...Simplicity Clockwork
...Gear Machine Clockwork
...Concentricity Clockwork
-Eggs
...Egg Drawing Machine
...Brown Eggs
...Green Eggs
...Fun With Trigonometry
-CNC
...The Milling Machine
...Inside the Controller Case
...Rear of Controller Case
...The Interface Board
-ProTrac Support
This is a Shoptask Bridgemill 3 in 1 machine that came equipped with mounting locations for NEMA 34 stepper motors. Shoptask sells a kit with timing belts and gears that fit on the stepper motor shafts. The Bridgemill came new with timing gears that fit on the X, Y, and Z axis acme screw shafts.
The stepper motors and the notebook PC were purchased on Ebay. The stepper controllers are housed in an old mid tower computer case.
I previously used a notebook computer sitting on a foldout table attached to the Bridgemill. Unfortunately, this produces unwanted vibration for the notebook. I later made a matching cabinet with a pull down table to house a desktop tower, monitor, mouse, and keyboard. The desktop computer is less prone to timing errors when running CNC programs. As I understand it, power saving routines in notebook computers vary the clock speed to conserve battery power.
A CNC program called KCAM is used to generate G code and run the stepper motors through the parallel port of the computer.
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