Friday, May 16, 2014

Homemade DIY CNC Pendant to test out CNC equipment

Last night I finished building my DIY CNC pendant and tested it out.  I still need to add a manual jogger to it someday.  It is made out of an old Zenith TV remote control.  The key is to have three position toggle switches.  I have a lot of them laying around that were left over from another project.  You can build this for about $25 or for free in my case because I used parts that I had laying around.  It will be in my next book "Arduino CNC Projects".

Here is what the insides of the CNC Pendant look like.  The 555 is on the left side and the 9 volt battery is only safe to use if all of your CNC inputs have opti-couplers.  The cable is a 4 pair network cable.

This is the schematic diagram of the wiring of the direction switches.  You need either 6 Volts or you can use 9 volts and a 5 volt regulator.

This is the wiring of the 555 timer and the power switch.  Either use 6 volts or add a 5 volt regulator to protect your BOB (Break out Board) from the excessive voltages.  I was using an old battery that was only putting out about 6 volts.  You might also be able to tap into 5 volts from your CNC.
Here is a link to a video of the homemade CNC and this pendant working.  This video was from before the 555 was put inside of the pendant.  http://youtu.be/nbSun9bJMPo

Here is what the DIY CNC looks like today.
Here is the latest video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/YB4Aem0amOo

3 comments:

karlboll said...

Excellent project! Just what I need for my build. I'm probably going to make a smd board for this, do you want the eagle files?
Also, spelling error in the title ; Homemade.

karlboll said...

Excellent project. Just what I need for my build. I'm probably going to make a smd board for this, do you want the eagle files?
Also, spelling error in the title ; Homemade

Bob Davis said...

Sure, I have been hoping to make circuit boards on the CNC machine itself.