This type of astrophotography mount is often called a barndoor mount, a scotch mount or a Haig mount. This mount allows you to take long exposure of the night sky by canceling out the apparent motion of the stars in the sky.

You can get more information on this type of device on Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_door_tracker.

The version displayed here is made using soft wood (pine) but the final assembly should be made of hard wood such as maple.

Note: The mechanism is working as expected but I am still having some vibrations transmitted to the camera. I have to eliminate these before to try taking any pictures. Improvements are on the way ... stay tuned.

This thing drives 4 stepper motors synchronously.
I designed it for the BigRep thingiverse.com/thing:8609 which has 4 Stepper motors for the Z-axis.

One Step, Dir and Enable signal gets split up and serves 4 Polou A4983 stepper carrier boards.

As the stepper motors i use (180Ncm) pull 2A per coil, each driver has its own 12V line and connector. Mounting holes (50x50mm) for a fan are provided also.

Looking for ways to rebuild my two cupcakes in the search of the uber-cupcake, I stumbled on tinkerings' hybrid pololu / makerbot stepper driver. This thing is awesome and I had to have one. But looking at it closer I thought the trace routing could be a bit better with larger traces, tighter tolerances, and I felt it needed a little more power.

So I rerouted the board, brought everything up to the top layer (dip switches would be worlds easier to adjust without taking the board off the bot), changed all the surface mount parts to 0805, and added an ATX-4 connector for a little more amperage. I also removed three of the endstop connections (because who really needs six?) to reduce the size of the board even more. Now its only a tiny bit bigger than the existing makerbot stepper drivers. With the right capacitors I still think it gets pretty good airflow under the drivers... these A4983 drivers rock and don't get too hot on the makerbot.

Update: Everything works like a charm! The images show the cupcake after installation and even though my wiring is not fully done it makes a huge difference in the tidiness of the electronics. If my x carriage wasn't acting up the bot would be much quieter... the extruder motor is louder than the steppers.

Update: Make sure that the belt tension is adjusted properly, as in looser than you think should even work - this was my problem with the x carriage. Then you need to dial back the current using the trimpot on the pololus until the motors move smoothly and quietly. Properly adjusted this thing is as quiet, well, as quiet as a resonant plywood box can be.

Bold Note: I have not assembled or built one of these and only used the original PSMD board as reference to try and make things fit. The capacitor and jumper switches under the Polulu may or may not fit. Also, i changed the connector for the stepper to a standard 0.1" header.

This is simply a manipulation of the PSMD Triple Axis Driver by 'tinkerings'.
The idea is that it replaces the need for 5 stepper boards using the Gen 4 Makerbot electronics and replaces it with only one board. (Not counting the 5 pololu boards).


The first step for me was to recreate the previous version with an additional 2 stepper drivers. Next step is to make the connector a 30-pin ribbon so i can create custom boards for various controllers. :P

Note: Some Pololu drivers can operate at 3.3V and 5V...just saying. :) The end stop connectors on A and B is for experimental purposes. I know it consumes unnecessary pinnage, but you never know what it may be used for...encoder? :)

UPDATE #1: Thanks for the tips Protonite! I've added some changes that some people may like, and some may find it really annoying. :) I changed the 10 pin connector to a 6 pin connector, like on the Makerbot boards. I've axed the Max Endstop for good measure. The Makerbot motherboard has 2 pins unused. I added VCC and Minumum Endstop signal to these pins. It should not affect the Makerbot Motherboards compatibility. Ive added both the PC Power Supply plug, and a screw terminal connection. There is also a switch added so you can turn off the Voltage to the motors without powering down the supply completely. Useful for servicing the stepper boards. I appreciate the input advice! I think the new layout looks pretty sick, and i cant wait to get a working version made. :)

Compatibility:
Makerbot Motherboard; Stepper Motors require standard 0.1" header

This is a 6-Pin Shrouded Male Connector which accepts an IDC Connector. I bought some Polulu Carrier kits and only a 10-Pin Connector was included. Unfortunately, I don't have any electronics suppliers in my town and I didn't want to wait for a delivery, so I built my own.

Update: Openscad Parametric Version coming soon.

I keep meaning to learn some OpenScad so I can easily make these types of things parametric, but every time I start, I end up thinking, "Man I could get this done in like 20 seconds in Sketchup".

This is a derivative of Tinkering's thingiverse.com/thing:4526 with the endstop interface and the LED's removed (for now) using the robotshop.com/pololu-8v-35v-2a-single-bipolar-stepper-motor-driver-w-regulators.html . This board is designed to be easy to etch at home using the laser printer method so it can be made at home. I decided to make this guy because i fried one of my motor controllers by accident and the replacements have a 3 week lead time. Everything needed to make this can be picked up from radio shack in exception to some of the connectors.

If you want micro-stepping (1/16), and want to learn how to make your own PCB, this thing is for you.

* Will be finishing write up soon!

The DC Servo Controller is a specialized Arduino designed to control a DC motor in with feedback from an encoder. This is what is called a 'closed-loop' system and more commonly a 'servo' motor. When most people think servo motor, an image of the hobby servo comes to mind. Hobby servos are special motors with a motor, gearbox, and control electronics built into one single package. These motors are cheap and easy to control. This board is more flexible, and is the big brother to that type of setup. With the MakerBot DC Servo Controller, you have the freedom to fully program your servo, and is is also designed to work with our Magnetic Linear Encoders or Magnetic Rotary Encoders which give you an amazing amount of accuracy and flexibility in your design. You can also use much stronger motors that can draw up to 2.8A! With this board you can build awesome, accurate, and easily programmed robots.

Microstepping for great justice

These new stepper drivers are capable of doing 1/8 stepping which means that instead of jerking from one position to the next, the stepper motor will gradually move between them. This results in lower vibrations, lower noise, and better precision. Your machine will be quieter, print better, and create world peace.

Highly configurable and tunable

While this driver works great out of the box, we've added a bunch of configuration options to this board if you want to get into the nitty gritty of stepper driver operation. There is a dip switch selector to change the stepping mode between full, half, 1/4, and 1/8 step. The current control is also completely configurable with four potentiometers with large test points so that you can set the current, decay mode, and RC constants. With this you can tune the stepper driver to perfectly suit your stepper motor.

High power output

The chip we're using is capable of handling up to 2.8A per phase, so you can easily control motors up to NEMA23 size. The provided power connector allows you to easily power it off a standard ATX power supply, but if you're feeling adventurous, the chip can handle up to 35V for the drive voltage. You'll have to wire up your own connector though.

The extruder controller is a compact little board based on the Arduino Diecimila. This board contains all the electronics required to drive one extruder, as well as extra electronics to drive a heated/automated build platform. It has built-in USB, so you can talk to it and program it with a normal USB cable. It has been redesigned with much higher power needs, so it has an ATX power header to provide the power. This means power is not coming over the RS485 cable which has the side effect of reducing noise.

This is a carrier board for the Pololu 1201 stepper controller module. This board holds the Pololu 1201 module and provides easy connections for Power, Stepper and Control wires. It has the same mounting holes as MBI stepper controllers and is a drop in replacement when set to half-step microstepping. The board enables you to select microstepping from full through 1/16 step (full, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth). All components are through hole for easy assembly. Endstop connections are provided in both RJ-45 and CDROM style connectors so you can use opto or mechanical endstops, this will enable you to use mechanical endstops with current Gen3 electronics. Gen3 and Gen4 connections are supported on the board so you can use it with your current Gen3 motherboard and then move it to the Gen4 electronics with a simple change in cable. Connections for Ground, Enable, Step and Direction are broken out in a handy 4-pin header for easy connection to an Extruder Controller for stepper extruder operation.

Kits are available at makergear.com/products/plastruder

This is a drop in replacement for all of the stepper controllers for reprap/makerbot. It uses four Pololu 1201 stepper control modules so you can select your microstepping level from full step thorugh 1/16 step for each axis. It uses a 40-pin connector on the stepper board and 10-pin IDCs on the other end so it will work with gen3 motherboards. 6-pin IDC connectors are an option to use it with Gen4 motherboards in the future. Endstops are supported with CDROM style connectors for all four axis so you can use mechanical endstops when they become available. The fourth axis has a 4-pin header (GND/Ena/Step/Dir) breakout for easy connections to the Extruder Controller for stepper extruder use. It can be mounted using the same holes as current stepper controllers on a makerbot.

It is all through hole soldering for easy assembly.

A drop-in replacement for the MakerBot stepper drivers that contains all three axes on one board.

You can order these from my web site: tinkerin.gs/p/psmd-pololu-stepper-motor-driver-triple.html
Now you can also order these from Seeed Studio!: seeedstudio.com/depot/psmd-triple-axis-driver-p-1029.html

Updated: Now smaller (same height as a Gen4 stepper driver and 1/4" wider for 3X the axes), and with dip switches to configure microstepping. Also now has a motor-power-in (or 12V out) screw terminal that can be used to drive the motors on up to 35V. I need to update the files an description.

See it in action here (with an early prototype): youtube.com/watch?v=8TEvwzTABEI&hd=1
And it's not mentioned or shown, but you can see it in action in this video: youtube.com/watch?v=2iGnlqBLn5s&hd=1

This board makes your steppers run at eight times higher resolution (1/16th steps instead of 1/2 steps), making it run smoother and way quieter.

I based the design on the MakerBot Stepper Driver v3.0 ( thingiverse.com/thing:760 ) but with a few notable exceptions:

•) I used the Pololu A4983 ( j.mp/pololu-smd ) stepper motor driver carrier board for each axis, so three of them are required for all three axes to work.
•) Circuitry that is already on the Pololu board has been removed.
•) The CD-ROM-style connectors from the Gen4 electronics are used. I used a horizontal-mount connector instead of a vertical mount for mostly cosmetic reasons on the Cupcake, and that may have to be changed for the Thing-o-magic or a RepRap. I'll have to modify the layout to support vertical connectors if they are needed.
•) This board is etchable and hand-solderable. This means that, with the exception of the thru-hole capacitor leads, none of the lead holes are used as vias. Also, traces are reasonably far apart, all of the wiring of the thru-hole parts (except the caps) is on the back, and vias (and drilling) are avoided as much as possible. I have provided the PDF I used for toner transfer.

I placed the Pololu boards vertically and with nothing under them to provide a natural flow of hot air past them. This is why the capacitors are mounted on the back. If they still show signs of overheating, there are holes at the bottom to mount a 12v CPU fan to blow air up past them and provide cooling. So far, in my testing, the steppers overheat before the drivers.

More info about the RepRap testing with Pololu drivers (and my inspiration) here: reprap.org/wiki/Pololu_Electronics

Update 1: Oops, I forgot to post my machines.xml. Now it's up.
Update 2: I added a photo of this latest revision with the endstop connectors corrected and soldered in place. I'm working on the mechanical endstops as another thing. All of the other photos are of the previos revision of this board.
Update 3: I updated the eagle files with some minor cosmetic changes, mostly to clean up the silk screen. I didn't change the version because it's all cosmetic.
Update 4: I have partial build instructions up on Flickr. flickr.com/photos/giseburt/sets/72157625473951054/
Update 5: I have updated the design a little, and bumped the version number to 0.5. (I've left the 0.2 files here.) It now has 6-pin connectors that should be compatible with the Gen4 electronics. It also has a 12V in/out screw terminal, and I've added more silk-screen to help identify parts and pins. The down side is that the -pin connectors made the traces really tight, and it will be more difficult to solder a home-etched version, since some traces to the 6-pin headers are on the top side.

I'm sorry, I'm currently out of kits. I am in the process of having some professionally made, but I don't currently have an ETA. The good news is that they will be completely assembled, and the only soldering needed will be of the Pololu drivers.

this is my arduino mega board version 1.8 i still have a few more things that i wish to ad onto it, like a pwm driver for the heater elements on the reprap. and i need to add another 100k thermistor input,

More efficient, quieter, and smoother than using the H-bridge hack on the GEN 3 extruder controller to drive a stepper based extruder and cheaper than using a full on stepper controller. This simple Pololu stripboard will let you hook up a 1/16 microstepping stepper motor for under $20. Even someone with my pathetic soldering skills can build one.

This board is for Pololu A4983 Driver.

Board size is 5.6cm x 5.6cm.

I modified this slightly so that the ground and signal pins for the endstop connectors are no longer reversed.

PLEASE NOTE:
This board is based off of RAMPS 1.0 and is no longer recommended for use. See the comments below for the recommended alternative.

A breakout shield to allow driving a RepRap from an Arduino Mega using Pololu's stepper drivers. Based on a design by JohnnyR (http://reprap.org/wiki/Arduino_Mega_Pololu_Shield).

PLEASE NOTE: This board has not yet been tested! I believe it works, but no guarantees are made!

This board is sized to allow inexpensive production from Seeedstudio (Currently 10 copies for $40 + a small shipping fee):
seeedstudio.com/depot/fusion-pcb-2-layer-10cm10cm-max-10pcs-p-396.html?cPath=64_12

This is perfect for a different sort of crowd-sourcing: Buy 10, use one and keep a spare, but sell the rest on ebay for a reasonable price.

I have no affiliation, but have ordered boards from them in the past.

This is a pololu stepper controller carrier. It has connectors to main board via 10pin, 6pin and 0.1" header/screw terminal or 3.5mm screw terminal connections. Endstop connections via 3pin 0.1" header, rj45 or 4pin cdrom-style connector. Motor connections via 0.1", 3.5mm, 0.156", 0.2" terminal options (screwterminal or molex). Microstepping selection via jumpers for full, half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth steps. Should be a drop in replacement for MBI stepper controller to provide microstepping.

I really wanted to move to a microstep-capable stepper driver, and heard lots of good things about the board from Pololu that is based on the Allegro A4983 (http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1202). I went through several iterations of my PCB, and here is the "final" version -- well, it's the one that I sent in for prototyping. Note that there isn't any silkscreening on this image because ExpressPCB's proto service doesn't include that or soldermask. I drew the text as traces so there would at least be some labeling. Those weird cutouts inside of the U1 footprint are there because I thought some people might want to try to install the Pololu carrier board underneath the PCB if they were hurting for space above the board. I do not yet know if the location is in a good spot for the capacitor, yet. The small hole in the lower right corner is for the pot adjustment, and the hole in the middle is for the Allegro chip. Makergear gives a screw to use as a heatsink, so I figure people can poke the screw out from this hole, and then use the small pads above and below to hold the screw down with some wire (wrap it around the screw, then solder it into place).

this is a pololu stepper board for the reprap, it has on it all the power and end stop inputs and outputs.

this has the ability to set the micro stepping on it, with jumpers.

i have updated it a little since i posted the pictures, there is now a pull down resister and it is run a little better.

i also posted it up on my blog too.

mike-mack.blogspot.com/2010/07/another-board-it-was-slow-day.html

This is a single-sided version of the makerbot stepper driver board v2.3
thingiverse.com/thing:393

I tweaked the board to make it easier to etch and make at home. The vias are not underneath components, simple wire links can replace the tracks on one side of the board, and the track sizes tweaked a bit.
It can still be improved.

This is a single board that contains most of the electronics required to run a RepRap. All the components that require soldering are through-hole.

Documentation can be found at objects.reprap.org/wiki/Gen2OnABoard

This is the Files i use to make a stepper driver board from the pololu driver.

This board is a combination of the PWM Driver Board, DC Motor Driver Board, Temperature Sensor Board, RS485 comms, and an Arduino! All on one board. It has screw terminals for easy hookup, as well as a power jack for power and an IDC header for the rotary encoder. Its an all-in-one solution for controlling an extruder.

Some highlights:

* Onboard atmega168 - program it just like an Arduino because it is an Arduino.
* 3 x MOSFET drivers for controlling up to 14A @ 12V. Perfect for heaters, fans, solenoids, etc.
* 2 x H-Bridges capable of up to 2A each. Control 2 motors, or control one stepper motor.
* A temperature sensor circuit for reading the standard 100K thermistor.
* RS485 connection for noise-free communications with the motherboard.
* IDC header for connecting a Magnetic Rotary Encoder.
* Polarized ICSP header for simple, easy programming.
* It mounts directly to the Pinch Wheel Extruder!
* It is plug and play with the RepRap Motherboard.

This board is a combination of the PWM Driver Board, DC Motor Driver Board, Temperature Sensor Board, RS485 comms, and an Arduino! All on one board. It has screw terminals for easy hookup, as well as a power jack for power and an IDC header for the rotary encoder. Its an all-in-one solution for controlling an extruder.

Some highlights:

* Onboard atmega168 - program it just like an Arduino because it is an Arduino.
* 3 x MOSFET drivers for controlling up to 14A @ 12V. Perfect for heaters, fans, solenoids, etc.
* 2 x H-Bridges capable of up to 2A each. Control 2 motors, or control one stepper motor.
* A temperature sensor circuit for reading the standard 100K thermistor.
* RS485 connection for noise-free communications with the motherboard.
* IDC header for connecting a Magnetic Rotary Encoder.
* Polarized ICSP header for simple, easy programming.
* It mounts directly to the Pinch Wheel Extruder!
* It is plug and play with the RepRap Motherboard.

This board allows you to control one stepper motor, as well as receive input from two limit switches. It is based around the Allegro A3982 Stepper Motor Driver with Translator. The A3982 is capable of driving up to 2A per coil. This board was designed to improve upon and replace the v1.x series of stepper drivers which are based upon the venerable L297/L298 stepper drivers. The A3982 offers a number of improvements:

* Only one chip to solder, as opposed to the two chip L297/L298 combo
* Superior DMOS technology (no heatsink required!)
* Built-in diodes and synchronous rectification (no large diode array!)
* Much cheaper and smaller than the L297/L298 (about $10 cheaper, total!)

The downside is that the board is mostly SMT, although we made a conscious design decision to stick with some of the largest and easiest to solder SMT components on the market. We used 1206 sized resistors and the A3982 itself is in a SOIC package. The board is very easy to put together, even for a beginner. Using a technique such as solder paste + hot plate, the board becomes ridiculously easy to solder. I found that it is much easier to solder SMT boards in this fashion than to solder pin after pin manually with through-hole components.