03.11 Update

For this week I've set a few goals to familiarize myself with a few basics before diving into machine design + building as follows :

• Arduino + Breadboards
• Stepping-motors vs servo-motors
• KiCad + PCB production workflow

1 - Blinking light test

2 - Stepper Motor

Understanding Stepper Motors:

• Stepper motors consist of a rotor with permanent magnets and a stator (a stationary portion of an electric generator or motor)
• Stepper motors have a high pole count (50-100), hence they're able to offer precision drive control for motion control applications
• They have a high torque at low speeds
• They produce high vibrations levels and are prone to resonance issues. Although they produce high amounts of heat which may be problematic in some cases

3 - Servo Motor

Understanding Servo Motors:

• A servo motor is a self-contained electrical device, that rotate parts of a machine with high efficiency and precision
• They're able to provide high levels of torque at high speed
• They do not suffer from vibrations or resonance issues
• Servo motors require an encoder to adjust pulses for position control
• The need for an encoder and gearbox makes the system mechanically complex and hence costlier than stepper-motors

For the PCB production workflow, I have been following along HTMAA 20 Tutorial done by Zach as well as Getting To Blinky 5.0 I feel pretty comfortable with the production process of generating black and white images then moving to mods to generate the toolpaths; however, I haven't fully grasped circuit design just yet. I'm hoping in the following weeks with a few more PCB design exercises I'll have a better understanding of it.

The routed PCB seems somewhat muddled and not as clean as I anticipated. I've used a 1/64 bit for routing and a 1/32 bit for cutting the outline. I'm assuming there's a spacing issue between the components in which some are packed tightly together, so on the 4th pass of the engraving those paths would be unintentionally merged together.