I used 6061 aluminum and a Freud 60 tooth 10 inch blade in the table saw. Diablo Tools | 10 in. x 60 Tooth Fine Finish Saw Blade . It was not made for aluminum, but I didn't want to sped $60 for a few cuts. After completing the CNC, I figured all aluminum cuts would be done with it, so no further need for the blade. That being said, it had no problems cutting the aluminum with the blade I had. I used my Rigid miter saw for the extrusion and I believe that was also a 10 inch 60 tooth blade that came with the saw. Wear safety glasses. After cutting a plate, I would sand the edges with my disk sander. I would always leave a little and sand the edge to the line on the template. The aluminum would get super hot when sanding, so I would toss it in the deep freeze that was conveniently located nearby to cool it down faster. I am not a patient man.

 

The power goes directly to the drivers (+ and -) from my 36 V power supply. I use a computer to control everything while it is cutting so the only power the Arduino sees is from the USB cable.

The drivers are wired in parallel.

 

I found a positive to working in a freezing cold garage today. Neither my beer nor my stepper motors got warm.

I recently built the new bench my CNC sits on and I wanted to put doors on it to keep the tools and other things stored below relatively dust free. My electronics housing will also be mounted down below. A more detailed description of the bench build along with links to the products purchased for it is in the build section. Here is one end of it and the doors drawn up in Sketchucam. Also, a quick video of a door being cut. I should have cut this at about 4000 mm/min, but I forgot to change the setting before generating the gcode. The others were cut at the 4000 mm/min rate with a shorter single flute cheap Chinese endmill (from a $14 / 10-pack) and I really liked the results.





I was also cutting out a bunch of components from 9/16" plywood. I didn't feel like cutting the 8 foot sheet down because I am lazy. So, I just cut-- fed more in--cut-- and repeated until material was consumed.


I have to say I really love Sketchucam for cranking out quick 2.5D drawings and Gcode. The project this was for did not really need a specific thickness, I started with 1/2 inch plywood scraps and quickly ran out. I found this 8' piece of 9/16" I have had taking up space in my garage for years and just changed the Sketchucam settings from 12.7 mm material thickness to 14.4 mm and the cut depth from 6.35 mm with two passes to 4.8 mm with three passes. Then created new Gcode. Easy peasy.

I did get lucky today. I guessed right, but barely. Luckily I didn't switch to the 1/4" endmill:

 

Steppers like higher voltage. My steppers are rated for 12-48 V. I have never seen a 3V stepper. The steppers sold at the Openbuilds part store are rated 12-48V. My power supply is 36V and 11 amps. 2.8 amps is the maximum the steppers will draw. They would all have to do it at the same time to exceed the capacity of the power supply. This will most likely never happen. Here is a great guide for understanding steppers and choosing a power supply. Section 6 in particular. It explains this way better than I can. Support | GeckoDrive

I chose the screw shield because it provided more space to work with, it allowed me to attach additional screw points to make adding capacitors easier for the limit switches, and made everything else much easier to wire up than trying to wire everything directly to the Arduino board. I am using DQ542MA drivers not the smaller drivers like the DRV8825s which are plugged into a CNC shield. I had used those for awhile, but even with heat sinks on and a fan blowing on them they would heat up. I was never comfortable walking away from it with those drivers. Once my fan quit blowing and the Z overheated causing missed steps and a ruined piece of wood. I will save those for a much lighter laser engraver or 3D printer with smaller motors. Also, plugging the external drivers to the CNC shield is much more complicated (to me) since the inputs where the driver chips go are not really clearly labeled.

 

I also went with the micro ATX case due to it being way cheaper than electrical boxes. I will take pictures when I am back home.

 

Could be.

 

I did take a few pictures when I built it. I mounted the drivers to more accessible removable side. I drilled holes in a 2 mm thick aluminum plate I cut for the back for mounting the aircraft plugs to connect the motors, etc...



I did some "computer hacking" (Ha Ha) with a tin snip and made the fan hole bigger and lined it up better. I thought it was odd they did not line up.


And with the stepper shield (in the process of wiring it up).



I mounted the power supply on the opposite side/corner of where the drivers are. It is 36 V and I had some 12 V fans, so I mounted one on the side I showed where the fan hole was modified, one on the back where a fan normally goes, and one exhausting air out the front utilizing the existing fan mount there underneath where the hard drives would be mounted. I did not need three, but 3 in series plugged into the 36 V power supply prevented me from having to add a 12 V power supply, or other electronics. The Arduino is mounted on the shelf where a DVD or other drive would be mounted. I used the USB port as an input from the computer to the Arduino. I spliced on the end of a USB cable on the inside where it would normally connect to a motherboard. A Google search gave me the proper wire color code for splicing. I use a headphone jack as the input port for my Z-probe. Currently the emergency off is mounted on the outside of the ATX case, but I plan to move it to the outside of the base cabinet soon.

 

*Edited See this: UNO GRBL DQ542MA Wiring Methods
Full disclosure: I am not an electronics genius by any means. I have just enough knowledge to accurately mimic people smarter than me to make things work. If it works, I stick with it.

There are two ways of doing it. I chose the method where I would not have to change GRBL settings. See this post in this thread:
C-Beam cnc

One thing I found when doing the Z-probe was if I used the ground on the "Digital" side of the board, it didn't work. Duh! It's analog.

 

From Kyo's build, it looks like you can use the 5V and this is how I did mine:

I just followed the GRBL pinouts above and it worked.

 

I use GRBL Panel. It works well for me.

You had me second guessing myself, so I looked closely at my picture above and noticed no wire in the "Enable" spot on the shield.I remember having an issue with the drivers not working when I first hooked it up. Just now I went out and looked and noticed I did switch to the 5V like Kyo's picture which is why the enable spot on the screw shield is empty. I really apologize for leading you down the wrong path. I thought I had edited my build to reflect the change. I will edit the above post to correct it. Go with Kyo's drawing, it works.

My updated wiring diagram:

 

If you look close, pin D8 has En written on it in sharpie. It is actually the 9th pin because on the digital side, the Arduino starts with pin 0 (RX0). Pin 1 is TX0. There is an empty screw terminal between the yellow and red wire.

*edited 2/26/2017

 

That wire has been removed. I did not catch that in the photo. These are old photos from prior to finalization and putting it into the box. I will try digitally editing it because it would be a pain to unscrew and remove it from the control box. Thanks for catching that.

**pictures have been corrected in this thread and in the build.

 

I have mine working, but a better explanation for others may help. I may have confused people due to some photos I took while wiring mine and then changing things and not correcting the photos. I have since corrected them.