TurboCNC in 555
One day over the summer Mark Bolas was meandering through craigslist as one does on such summer days, and he happened upon an advertisement for a home brew CNC machine. It was made out of pipes, skateboard bearings, and a few stepper motors. It also came with a computer and software to control the steppers. It was being sold for a few hundred dollars (maybe $200?). Apparently it was too good of a deal, and it now quaintly rests in the new 555 thesis space.
The whole contraption plugs into the parallel port of a Win98 machine and is controlled by the DOS based TurboCNC software. The software reads standard g-code, which is basically a text file with coordinates that tell the stepper motors where to place the the machining tool( There is software on the web that will convert AutoCAD .dxf files into g-code.). In our case, the machining tool is a DeWalt router (you know, the kind of router that cuts, not the kind that routes packets of bits).
As of Thursday, the machine is all set up to do its business. A test circle was cut out of some particle board with a straight bit.
