Last night I installed the rest of the stepper-motors onto the CNC mill project. I also installed the power-supply, on-off switch and the housing for the controller-card. Next step is to align the rails and install the spindle and on-off switch for the spindle.
I didn’t get a chance to work on the "turtle" CNC machine over the weekend. Hopefully tomorrow night.
Happy Halloween!
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About mattsanf
Matt Sanfilippo is the Chief Partnership Officer (CPO) for the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Co-Director of its Engineering Research Accelerator. In this role, Matt coordinates and enables strategic and sponsored research opportunities across the college, and stewards the development of proposals for major research opportunities along strategic themes. Additionally, he enables collaboration among the college's research institute/center executive directors, and industrial and government relations personnel in the pursuit of opportunities with industry, federal and state governments. Before becoming CPO for the College, Matt was the Senior Executive Director for Research Initiatives, the Executive Director of CMU's SII (Smart Infrastructure Institute) and ICES (Institute for Complex Engineered Systems), and Associate Director of PITA (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance) and RAMP (Research for Advanced Manufacturing in Pennsylvania).
Before CMU, Matt was Managing Director of Applied Technology for Michael Baker Corporation, an engineering and energy services firm. Matt managed Baker's technology division including Geographic Information System (GIS), software and web development, multimedia, virtual reality, visualization, Global Positioning System (GPS), mapping and surveying services. Before joining Baker, Matt was an Innovation Director for Redleaf Group, a Venture Capital/Operating Company focused on information security, supply chain and mobility solutions. While at Redleaf, Matt managed technical due diligence for seed-stage investments and coordinated relationships between Redleaf and their partner companies. Prior to Redleaf, Matt was CIO of GZA GeoEnvironmental Technologies, an infrastructure engineering firm, and operations manager for their Internet start-up that focused on web-technologies for health and safety and manufacturing metrics.
Matt is on the board of Larson Design Group (LDG), past Chairman of the Board for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, current board member of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), current Vice President of the Sewickley Heights Gun Club (SHGC) and former member of the Information Sciences and Technology Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania State University Beaver. Matt is also former Vice President of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Association of Internet Professionals and former Vice President of the Board of Trustees for Baker Combined Charity of Pennsylvania.
A Learning Adventure in the Workshop 
Please tell me, what model of steppers and what model of controller have you used on your 7th? I’m trying to build one also, and I’m totally at sea in regarding to picking these components properly. (I’ve started down the path of using Sanyo Denki 24v 0.18A motors with a Gecko controller, but now I see that the Gecko wants at LEAST 1A of current per phase. (And it suggests using 4x the rated DC voltage!) It’s enough to make me go back to trains, where 12v 1A means 12v 1A.
I bought a combination package of that came with the stepper motors and the controller together from http://www.stepperworld.com. Specifically, the FET-3/Economy package for $199. Go to the website for the specs. It is not the most powerful system, but it runs my 7th just fine so far and it made up for the fact that I am NOT an electronics wizard. Its pretty plug-and- play since the set comes with 3 motors, a power-supply and a controller and you pretty much just have to wire it up and it works.
Since John K’s design for the 7th uses the 1/4″ rod arrangement to drive the machine, you have so much mechanical advantage that you really don’t need that much power in the motors. Its a great design. Having said that, I DO wish that I had a bit more power so that I could run my 7th a bit faster. I can get about 7 inches per-minute with these motors, I probably could get a bit more with stronger ones….but speed is not really necessary for me since I am just a hobbyist.
I’ve had a few folks that “know” electronics tell me that this FET setup is not optimal, but frankly it is working great for me, and I am not electronically smart enough to understand what they are telling me is not optimal.
Good luck with 7th! Its worth the work!