Mill conversion

So after running into a little money, I picked up a cheap Chinese mill from Ebay, it's a CNC 3040. Mills like this are built with a parallel port for interfacing with desktop computers under programs like Mach3.

After verifying the hardware was fully functional, I decided to do a little 'upgrading'. I wanted to be able to run this mill off of my "Creation Workshop" software, so I took the time to build an interface cable to plug the DB25 connecter of the parallel port to connect directly to an Arduino board. This Arduino is running a fairly stock version of the 'Sprinter' firmware.

After a little tweaking and configuring a new profile in Creation Workshop, I was able to run a few GCode files on the mill.

As far as Creation Workshop goes, I have been building lots of new versions and adding new features recently. Instead of posting new versions on github, I've been posting to my forum www.buildyourownsla.com for better visibility and faster turnaround.

Mill is fixed.

I fixed and attached the motor for the x axis. The Z Stage needed a motor swap as well. I think everything is 100% now. I'm going to find a good gcode file to made this machine run through its paces.