THE INVENTABLES WORKSHOP

Can your grbl based CNC setup control all this equipment (at the same time!)? (4) Stepper motors, each on its own driver with up to 4.5amps of current and 40V. The Y axis uses (2) synchronized stepper motors  X,Y & Z homing switches on optically isolated circuits. Z Touch disk on an optically isolated circuit. 3 Spindles DC Quiet Cut Spindle with speed control.  AC Trim router with on/off control 3 phase VFD controlled spindle with 0-10V speed control. Vacuum controlled by gcodes M7,M8,M9 Feed control buttons (Hold & Resume) Introducing the TB6600 Shield This shield routes all of the signals on the Arduino UNO to the right places on the TB6600 Stepper Driver PCB.  It also adds an on board DC spindle control and feed control buttons.  There are 3 and 4 axis versions of the TB6600 board.  On the 4 axis version, the extra axis is slaved to the Y axis for Shapeoko 2 type machines.  The only option you need to configure with grbl is whether or not yo

Thanks for all the feedback on the  DC Power Supply Interface PCB  we posted last week!   We got enough  signups on the product page  to justify moving forward.  We digested all the suggestions we received and finalized a design.  Here is a quick rendering of what it will look like.  We've added and changed a couple of features, keep reading to follow the progress:

We unexpectedly got to hang out with local rockers  White Mystery  at the  Chicago Made  booth at SxSW last year. They were curious about our machines and we really enjoyed their "acoustic" set in the middle of the trade show floor. Once we were all back in Chicago, they came by our workshop a few times to prototype some ideas.

The Problem The basic enclosed power supply is the workhorse of the DIY CNC world. It is used in most small scale 3D printers and CNC routers. Unfortunately they are not the easiest items to wire cleanly. They are also difficult to add a power switch to. It gets even uglier when you add things like power controls for DC Spindles. But I think we might have a solution...

Now that's we've had a chance to recover from the holidays, the Inventables team put together a quick roundup of our favorite projects of 2014. What was your favorite project? Share it in the comments and we'll compile a list of our customer's favorites for next week. Engagement ring box by Joe Ternus. This project went viral and for good reason- it's beautiful, it's a heartwarming story, and it was all made using one of our desktop 3D carving kits. Photos of the design and building process here . Check out 7 other awesome projects from 2014 below...