Quote Originally Posted by saxonhawthorn View Post
Robin,

Er.... hrrumph! I have to live on a pension now, and our house rule is "If it costs money, we don't do it."
I just checked the price of an MSD542 from Motion Control Products (http://www.motioncontrolproducts.co....roducts_id=3): it's £47.12 presumably plus vat, and presumably I'd need one per motor (you're right that I'm new to CNC).

However I'm not new to electronics, and I have more oscillators, scopes, and logic analysers than I have benchtop real estate to put them on, and for me it's not a nightmare at all. I haven't yet designed or costed up making a multi-channel controller, but my instincts tell me that by the time I've bought four or five MSD542s I could have built many more myself and probably saved quite a few bob into the bargain.

But "He that putteth on his armour ought not to boast as he that putteth it off." I'll do it first, and then boast. :)

Ian
Ian,

As a hardware designer turned software engineer and one who much prefers to build rather than buy I would dearly love to agree with you. However unless your bits box is very deep you are unlikely to deliver something of the functionality of the MSD542 for the price. I built my stepper drivers based on a very long-toothed design using the L297/L298 chipset and the parts alone for 3 axes came to over £70. While arguably that was cheaper, I could have bought a DIYCNC System 3 for £90 for the same functionality and that doesn't come close to the capabilities of the MDS unit.

So I sadly have to agree with Robin, who I know to be no slouch for going down the "create your own" route (having seen the injection moulding rig he built, and his nearly finished plasma cutter - is that running yet?), that your limited funds are better applied elsewhere.