News, new members, equipment donations and so on

[Andrew Back]

On 10/01/17 10:50, Martin McGrath wrote:

> Recently we have had some interesting donations. Firstly someone
> contacted us via the website offering some test equipment, stepper
> motors and some other bits and bobs, thanks again to Kenny C for
> collecting this and doping it off, and Kenny D for going through it
> all. In addition a friend of mine has donated the shell of a small CNC
> machine. I'm donating an arduino mega, ramps board and stepper
> drivers, Kenny D likely has a power supply we could use. We're aiming
> to crowd source the few remaining parts and then hold an event to
> build a CNC machine. A project page has been created. Updates to the
> will be posted on list as well as on the site, proposed dates for the
> build will operate in the same manner as other Electron Social get
> togethers, various dates are proposed, people can register their
> interest and a suitable date is chosen which suits everyone best.

If it would be of use, I can offer to donate a BeagleBone Black (BBB)
plus Probotix PBX-BB board, which up until recently were used with
Machinekit — excellent fork of LinuxCNC, with a focus on supporting BBB
hardware — to drive a CNC plasma cutter. It's now surplus to
requirements as we've replaced the BBB with an Intel NUC and some fancy
MESA I/O hardware with tons of I/O.

You can read about the plasma project here:


https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/upgrading-a-cnc-plasma-cutting-machine-part-1

We still use this hardware/software combination to drive a CNC mill:


https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/upgrading-a-cnc-milling-machine-part-1

Not sure when I'm due up next, so if of use I can put it in the post.

Cheers,

Andrew