Controlling 6 stepper motors and 2 spindles on a budget

[Doddy]

freddi - You obviously consider cost a major issue here but don't indicate how cheap you're looking. What Jazz has linked to is undoubtably a solid CNC solution, but if you're looking at cheap, and IF your stepper drive power requirements are limited, then look at the stepstick drivers commonly used for 3d printer type devices, coupled with an Arduino Mega type controller. I wouldn't recommend the suggestion of a Uno/IO Extender - why bother when a Mega would give you the additional I/O required, more flash/RAM and you don't have the faff and latency associated with the extender. Your spindle controller - up to you but you could use the PWM output from the Mega for an analogue drive (use an integrator to get a clean analogue output). Happy to discuss more.

[Boyan Silyavski]

It all depends what size are the steppers and what speed they will move at. The 3d printing board are super slow / at least to our standard :-) here/ , but if motors are nema17 this way is better as the drives are cheap and plug and play in the board. But "spindle" and "nema17" are not words to be used in one sentence. So What Dean says is much better

[freddi]

It all depends what size are the steppers and what speed they will move at. The 3d printing board are super slow / at least to our standard :-) here/ , but if motors are nema17 this way is better as the drives are cheap and plug and play in the board. But "spindle" and "nema17" are not words to be used in one sentence. So What Dean says is much better

Our steppers are Nema 34 on the x,y plane and Nema 23 planetary geared motors on the z. We need to achieve 3.14 KW on our spindle. We thought of buying a 3KW spindle but as this is expensive we are thinking of using the gear to adjust the power for a less powerful spindle. Spindle needs a minimum of 1000 rpm, the steppers need 104.7rad/s basically all motors are going at 1000 rpm. Yes, the ardiuno mega should be of use thank you.

[freddi]

freddi - You obviously consider cost a major issue here but don't indicate how cheap you're looking. What Jazz has linked to is undoubtably a solid CNC solution, but if you're looking at cheap, and IF your stepper drive power requirements are limited, then look at the stepstick drivers commonly used for 3d printer type devices, coupled with an Arduino Mega type controller. I wouldn't recommend the suggestion of a Uno/IO Extender - why bother when a Mega would give you the additional I/O required, more flash/RAM and you don't have the faff and latency associated with the extender. Your spindle controller - up to you but you could use the PWM output from the Mega for an analogue drive (use an integrator to get a clean analogue output). Happy to discuss more.

Yes, that is the issue for us cost is a major problem. 1500 pounds is our budget is buy all components of the machine, I mean it is give or take depending upon our customer and how he feels about that part of the design. The type of power we are looking at for the motors are between like 83 and 330 W roughly. Ok I will do some research into stepper motor drivers, yes arduino mega controller seems perfect for our project, thank you for suggesting it, will it be able to control 6 steppers motors and 2 spindles though?

The spindles need to move in unison so move at the same time. 4 of the steppers need to move at the same speed and then 2 of the steppers at the same different speed.
Also, in terms of the g code, we have been directed towards using grbl, anyone used this kind of software before? Any tips on how to get the best out of it? So in terms of the spindle controller, it can definitely be controlled by the mega arduino?