Expanded CNC machine

Arnix

Hi to all. Long time no see....

I have one new project in which I would like to use duet3d ( maybe the latest version ). It will be something like mobile cnc machine but with additional options. Basically this will be robot with which will use one or two motors to prepare the surface, one motor for pulling material from feeder track and finally screwing the screws into this prepared material. In other words and totally simple : Insert ready made holder, take predefined object from feeder track, move this object to x/y position, tighten the screw into this object, wait for next position/repeat.

For doing this, am planning to use NEMA 32 steppers with gearbox, that i have at home, but in the future, this will be changed with servo motors from Teknic.
So, can this be done with duet3d 3 and without expansion board or should i go with version 2 and expansion board ?

Btw. i saw that there is reseller in Germany but i was wondering how much would it cost to buy directly from you and send it to central Europe ( Croatia ) ? Info about shipment time, taxes etc. is also welcome.

Best regards !
Emil

droftarts

@Arnix I'm not exactly clear how many stepper motors/axes you need to support; is it 5 or 6? Also, you say NEMA 32; do you mean NEMA 23 or NEMA 34? Generally, a Duet 3 MB6HC has 6 stepper driver outputs (up to 6.3A peak current), and can easily drive all NEMA 23 motors, and many NEMA 34 motors (depending on current draw), directly. It can also take a 48V input voltage now. However, you will not be able to drive servo motors directly from it; you will need expansion boards to do that. The Duet3 MB6XD would be the better choice to run external drivers, particularly if you want to run 5 or 6 of them, but then doesn't have any internal stepper drivers.

Duet 2 on it's own is limited to 5 on board stepper drivers (Up to 2.4A peak current). You can expand this with a DueX5, which adds a further 5 stepper drivers. 3 of these outputs can be used to drive external drivers, or you can use the Duet 2 Expansion Breakout Board (EBoB) that provides 5 external stepper driver outputs. A further two outputs are available on the Duet 2 itself, but require extra hardware if the signalling level is not 3.3V.

For more information about external drivers, see https://docs.duet3d.com/User_manual/Connecting_hardware/Motors_connecting_external

You can contact our sales team on sales@duet3d.com if you don't have a local retailer.

Ian