Computer Interfacing Project(Help!)

[goblin_techies]

I am struggling student now in finalizing my ideas for my final project.
These are some of my ideas:

1. Ink Refiller for board marker and technical pen

2. Moving AIr pump for aquariums w/ air regulation control

3. Transformer rewinder

Please note that the above ideas must be interfaced w/ a PC. Give simple circuits,easy to buy and design. Preferably using C or Pascal programming to control and using a bipolar stepper motor.

Thank you for bearing with me w/ these ideas. I am open w/ any other suggestions using computer interface.

 

[Marks256]

Turn a printer into a CNC mill... Now THAT would impress your professor!

 

[mramos1]

Pascal? Oh Borland kept that alive. Was that N. Worth or something like that. Trivia time.

 

[goblin_techies]

???

Turn a printer into a CNC mill... Now THAT would impress your professor!

what is a cnc mill?

 

[goblin_techies]

??

Pascal? Oh Borland kept that alive. Was that N. Worth or something like that. Trivia time.

what do u mean?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Pascal? Oh Borland kept that alive. Was that N. Worth or something like that. Trivia time.

Yes it was, and it's still alive and well, known as Delphi. The Microsoft versions were pretty useless, but the Borland ones were great - incredibly fast to compile, which is why Borland called it 'Turbo Pascal'. Mind you, the 'Turbo C' compiler was many times faster than Microsoft's as well.

 

[mkh]

c or pascal???? core 2 duo is great...(i m an intel fan)

 

[mramos1]

Yes it was, and it's still alive and well, known as Delphi. The Microsoft versions were pretty useless, but the Borland ones were great - incredibly fast to compile, which is why Borland called it 'Turbo Pascal'. Mind you, the 'Turbo C' compiler was many times faster than Microsoft's as well.

I was a beta tester for them in the Turbo days, ASM, BASIC, Pascal and C. I actually bought MS C for a ton of money in the 80's and you are right, slow and bloat even back then.

 

[Marks256]

A CNC mill is a milling machine that can be ran from a computer, and used to engrave words, or make custom parts.

**broken link removed**

here is some info on CNC;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNC

 

[matthewlittle2006]

my school has something like this for making pc boards, it etches the board and drills it too, pretty cool, but for $4,000, i think i'd rather stick with making them by hand...

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

my school has something like this for making pc boards, it etches the board and drills it too, pretty cool, but for $4,000, i think i'd rather stick with making them by hand...

Only a cheap one then!

A guy who used to work with me, Neil, has a younger brother called Martin, who used to be a CNC machinist at a local factory. He used BIG, VERY, VERY EXPENSIVE CNC machines to make parts for Rolls Royce jet engines!. He used to use very expensive special alloys, lots of titanium and stuff - and the components were extremely expensive, with VERY tight tolerances.

I presume the machines ran to £100,000's?, or perhaps even millions?. But when you're churning out parts that cost £10,000's it rather puts the machines price in perspective!.

 

[hjames]

https://www.lpkf.com/

neat machines, relatively pricy, but if you need a very clean, drilled, double layer board in less than an hour, there aren't many alternatives out there. There's a pile of "homebrew CNC routers" which use dremel tools strapped to a bunch of stepper motors which aim in the same general direction.

On the other end, there's a computer controlled etch-a-sketch project out on the web somewhere. Stepper motors attached through parallel ports can do some very interesting things.

 

[Marks256]

Yeah... If you could make one out of an old printer(i am actually going to play around with it), i, as well as your professor, would be impressed. Oh, you need good software, too.

 

[goblin_techies]

how can i make an old printer into a CNC machine?? im afraid it will cost a lot to build that thing..

any comments on my previous 3 ideas?

 

[mramos1]

What does the air filter project involve. The spec was a little light.

At transformer rewinded does not sound to hard.

A CNC machine. tell us what you do, I want one as well

 

[Marks256]

how can i make an old printer into a CNC machine?? im afraid it will cost a lot to build that thing..

Umm, well, there really is no right way. But there really isn't a wrong way either... Use your imagination! Get like three old Parallel(interfaced) printers, as i am sure you can get them almost for free. Then, get a dremel tool(not sure how spendy they are. i don't own one, yet), and make an X,Y,Z axis. Pretty simple if you ask me.

Make a circuit to control the stepper motors, and then write software. Heck, you could go RS232, or SPP(standard parallel port), or EPP, or ECP.

Let your mind run free! If you don't get a good mark(grade) on it, you will still have an awesome machine to make custom parts from, and you would have learned a hell of a lot of info. That is really the only reason for the final year projects, isn't it? To see what you are capable of? Yeah...

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

There are many examples on the net, you might have a look at

 

[goblin_techies]

Umm, well, there really is no right way. But there really isn't a wrong way either... Use your imagination! Get like three old Parallel(interfaced) printers, as i am sure you can get them almost for free. Then, get a dremel tool(not sure how spendy they are. i don't own one, yet), and make an X,Y,Z axis. Pretty simple if you ask me.

Make a circuit to control the stepper motors, and then write software. Heck, you could go RS232, or SPP(standard parallel port), or EPP, or ECP.

Let your mind run free! If you don't get a good mark(grade) on it, you will still have an awesome machine to make custom parts from, and you would have learned a hell of a lot of info. That is really the only reason for the final year projects, isn't it? To see what you are capable of? Yeah...

what X,Y,Z axis sir?

 

[akg]

what X,Y,Z axis sir?

ohhhh....!!!!

 

[agent420]

How about a stepper controlled Etch-A-Sketch? CNC soul with a bit less mechanical complexity. There's a couple examples if you Google 'stepper etch sketch'. Trick is finding a decent EAS; they're all made in China now and a lot cheaper than I remember. I had to sort through several units before I found one with smooth operation.

I don't have a proper photo, but you can see a corner of my design using a simple plexi framework below. Depending on your steppers, you could perhaps use a direct drive method (at least one example on the net uses this). I got my belt drive hardware from . Quite a variety of hardware and quick shipping.
**broken link removed**


OT: CNCzone is your one stop diy cnc resource. Worth a look.