z axis double motor

[philtrum]

just looking at the possibilities of adding 2 steppers for the z axis and came across this wiring

http://reprap.org/mediawiki/images/e/e3/Rampswire13.svg

shows patching 2 motors into the one channel ... food for thought

ps the board is

http://www.emakershop.com/browse/listing?l=342

Phil

[barneyg]

You need to be careful if you are going to use an arduino to drive your stepper motors ... which is what that board is designed for.

That board is designed for use with RepRap firmwares like Marlin or Sprinter etc : http://reprap.org/wiki/Firmware  I';m not sure these are suitable for running a CNC. 

The Arduino firmware that will definitely work for CNC is called Grbl and uses a different pinout to the reprap firmwares so a board that works for Grbl doesn';t work for reprap ... that said the firmwares are open source and looking at Marlin there is a pins.h file which defines what pins do what so in theory it would be possible to use a Ramps board with Grbl :)

[shortwave]

One of my machines runs  twin motors on a single axis
It';s not the best way to wire it on one single channel as you will have to Match the motors and set up the current limiting etc
You are better off using two channels and linking the inputs to the Channels from the parallel port This way you are less likely to lose steps