Hello
My name is Melissa, what type of arduino kit should I use for a 3D printer. I am building my own 3D printer for my senior project and I was wondering if all arduino boards will work for this purpose ?
Also how many stepper motors can I connect to a arduino board ?
Thank you
It seems like the average 3D printer can easily use more pins than are available on the common ATmega328p-based Arduinos (which use a 28-pin microcontroller), and most designs have used something with more pins - a "Sanguino" based on a 40-pin ATmega644 was the first one I ran into, and I think a lot of current designs have just gone with some sort of shield for the standard Arduino MEGA2560 board (the original Sanguino pre-dates the original Arduino Mega.)
Depending on what it is that you intend to make "yours" of the project, there has been a lot of standardization "recently", and you can get all-in-one "Arduino compatible 3D printer boards" (with various different CPU chips) designed to be used with standard motor driver sub-boards. You could put together the electronics for most 3D printer configurations with very little effort at all (which might be appropriate if you were doing custom SW, or Mechanical Engineering...)
I see
I have 6 motors on my 3D printer. Do you know how many motors does Arduino MEGA 2560 supports?
Thank you
During the design process, it is often better to figure out what you will need and then find the board that meets that specification. So the question has to go back to you, in your design how many steppers do you need to control? How big will the code be? How many pins will you need? Those types of questions need to be answered by you and then you can find a board that fits. With nothing more than the vague idea of 3D printer, this is really a question that can't be answered well.
I need 6 motors to control my design. It has to have 6 degrees of freedom, I really don't know how many pins do I need because I am new at Arduino and don't know much about the boards.
lissette888:
I am new at Arduino and don't know much about the boards.
Then a 3D printer is an awfully ambitious project. I'd grab an UNO and do a little bit of learning before getting too far in. Learn how to run 1 stepper. Learn how to write some of the code.
This is like saying, "I really don't know how to swim yet, but I'm going to try to swim across the English Channel. Can you guys tell me what sort of swimsuit to buy" And this is for a final project so it sounds like you have a lot riding on it.
You also need to get a feel for how big the code is going to be. That's a very important spec. You may be able to drive the steppers with an UNO and a could of stepper driver chips, but if the code doesn't fit then you're toast.
Okay I understand that.
But could someone please tell me how many motors can I hook up to Arduino mega 2560 board ? Does anyone knows?
Thanks
Using stepper motor drivers? A hell of a lot of them.
That's why I'm trying to send you off to do some learning first. The question you are asking doesn't make a lot of sense. If you can write the code and build the circuits, then there really isn't much limit to what you can and can't control.
It depends on what motor drivers you use. Some of the more primitive motor driver (say, L293D) setups take four or more pins for each stepper motor (each end of a bi-polar winding, plus possible control/enable/etc), while a more modern chip like the A4988 only takes two pins for each motor (direction and step, plus possible ctrl/ena) Then you need limit sensors, heaters, and who knows what else (well, YOU might.) A MEGA has over 50 outputs, so it's a pretty safe bet. See https://www.makerbot.com/media-center/2009/03/27/arduino-vs-sanguino-vs-arduino-mega