I'm in the midst of building a homemade CNC machine that will primarily machine down aluminum and some harder woods but I'm having doubts with my current build. I was going to run Arduino Mega but there's no consistence as to my best configuration. After reading an Instructable with use of Pi and TinyG, I looked into this option. My question being is the TinyG powerful enough to run NEMA23 1.8A 340oz.in/2.4Nm stepper motors without the use of the TB6600 drivers to be able to go through aluminum and hardwood?
I'm more interested with detail over speed. I'll run it as slow as I need to get the detail I need accomplished. As long as it works. I like the idea of the Pi being the host computer so I didn't need to have my home computer hooked up to it and maybe do something with Octoprint to view remotely. First, however, I need to get it running.
I use an OrangePi Zero Plus (about $20 with case, another couple of cents or so for a 12v > 5v step-down) running serial port json server with chilipeppr as my wireless interface. On the same Pi I have Laserweb/CNCWeb host and octoprint, but it took a little fettling.
I use TinyG/G2 with laser and CNC router and it is solid.
If I was going to use external drivers, I would use a Due with G2Core and appropriate shield, rather than a TinyG
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