[Lab] Fwd: stepper drivers

[Darcy Whyte]

I think an arduino drawbot <http://mambohead.com/2011/07/random-drawbot/> is
a total blast. I want to make more of them and am looking at the different
ways of controlling steppers with the arduino.

*Stepper Drivers*

Easydriver<http://danthompsonsblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/easydriver-42-tutorial.html>
is
one mechanism. They are about 15.00 each at Robotshop. So that comes out to
30.00 which isn’t too terrible. You can even run
three<http://youtu.be/migN744l640> of
these if you want to do cnc <http://youtu.be/bBsjsoVXBNA>. That comes out to
75.00 to run a three axis CNC including the Arduino. Not too bad for a small
hobby project. But for drawbot that’s a bit steep.

The Adafruit motor
shield<http://www.robotshop.com/ca/adafruit-motor-shield-kit-arduino.html>
is
a better deal for a drawbot. It’s only 20.00 and it can run two servos and
either two steppers or four DC motors. Way more bang for the buck.

What are good ways to get the price down even further?
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