Stepper Motor Controller from used Computer Equipment

We all need some inspiration from time to time. Andrew is a 13 year old from Canada who is doing some electronic experimenting. He built this stepper motor controller and single axis CNC machine from recycled parts from old computer equipment. Looks like he loves hot glue as much as I do. 🙂 All he needs now is a few more scanners to make his single axis CNC machine into a 3 axis unit. Just for safety I might suggest using a metal case for housing the electronics just incase something overheats. An old AT power supply housing looks like it could work well and already has lots of vent holes and a fan that could be left in place.

"I am 13 I have always wanted to build a cnc machine but because inexpensive parts are hard to find in Canada I have had trouble trying to build a decent cnc controller. The purpose if this Instructable is to show that anyone can build a cnc controller using an old scanner. The scanner I used was an old OpticPro scanner. I had previously extracted the stepper motor and experimented with it but not considered it for a cnc controller. All of the controllers on the Internet had a large number of expensive transistors or were ridiculously complex. I finally stumbled across this controller and realized I could build it. By reusing the parts from the old scanner and making the case from recycled cardboard, I am cutting back on my impact on the planet."