Hello from Portugal

[iraqigeek]

Hi all,

I'm Ali, an Iraqi living in Portugal and working as a software developer. I'm trying to build a (very) low cost small table top CNC router (150x150mm bed) for around 200 Euros.

The machine will be based on the Arduino microcontroller board (ATmega168). The guys from the RepRap foundation have created a small G-Code interpreter for the Arduino and there have been a couple of attempts at optimizing the code and reducing its size to fit on the limited memory available on the Arduino.

So far, I've been playing with the arduino trying to get used to the development environment and the microcontroller. I've also been working on a small fixed point arithmatic library in the hope it will reduce the size of the firmware. Last week I bought 3 stepper motors and 3 cheap driver boards and I'm waiting for them to arrive.

The next major hurdle, as I see it, is sourcing/making a low cost spindle. I'm thinking of using a brushless motor as those too are cheap to buy, very efficient, and have quite high RPMs. In fact, it was through a google search for brushless spindles that I cam through Jeremy's thread on these forums.

That's long enough for an introductionary post.

[Lee Roberts]

Hi iraqigeek, welcome to MYCNCUK. Please take the time to view the FAQ section for answers to questions you may have, if your building a new machine be sure to start a new build log detailing your progress !