Hello all,
I'm building a ShapeOko based on an Arduino Uno and the BuildLog stepper shield with Pololu A4988 drivers. However, I wanted to see if anyone had information relating to driving the shield via parallel port with Mach3 or LinuxCNC as an alternative to GRBL on the Uno. Is it possible to wire directly? Are there any more electronic components needed?
I had originally looked at
http://www.buildlog.net/blog/2011/08/open-source-4-axis-stepper-driver/, but nobody seems to be producing any kits for this configuration. To my eyes it looks pretty similar to the stepper shield, but I'm a system administrator and documentation guy and not really familiar (at all) with electronics.
My end goal is to try both the GRBL/Arduino and LinuxCNC methods of driving a ShapeOko and fill out more alternatives and documentation for the electronics over there.
Thanks,
Andrew