I ordered two 5 axis SmoothieBoards and am interested in getting started soon since orders are about to be shipped 
When I made the original purchase, I was under the impression that I could directly drive stepper motors from the smoothie to do my laser engraver, cnc plasma or such things.
I have never attempted a project like this but when I look at all the CNC kits on ebay from China I believe the hardware (rails, sliders, motors) will be good, but likely the electronics and driver support will suck and I will be left with a piece of junk…. Till now! I love the idea of just scrapping the electronics it comes with and using this for all my CNC stuff.
I would like to order a few stepper drivers but not sure yet how big I am going with some of it so for some applications I might be using a small 1.4A motor and others a 5.6, can I use the same driver for both as long as it is oversized or do I need to decide first what I am doing? I just have a ton of ideas in mind to build and don’t want to be stuck without a driver / motor combo.
If I wanted to be able to control something like this:
ebay 4x4-CNC-PLASMA-CNC-ROUTER-CUTTING-TABLE
I just grab 3 of these right?
ebay CNC 2M982- AC Stepper Motor Driver Controller 7.8A 24-60V AC for Router Mill
Then can I use that to supply less than the 7.8A to smaller motors?
I am looking at making a ABS recycling extruder for a 3d printer which would have much smaller motors and need hothead thermocouple control
I could grab one of these to play with on my desk, but probably too small for anything serious:
ebay 2pcs DC 5V Stepper Motor + ULN2003 Driver Test Module Board 28BYJ-48 for Arduino
Thanks guys, I am just hoping to make the jump into some of these things as I have a CNC laser already, 3d printer coming soon and a CNC 2HP mill coming next week. I want to know more than how to hit “Go”
Imported from wikidot