In article ,
"Dave, I can't do that" wrote:

Hi Guys,

Just picked up an old laser engraver that was based on a plotter, looks to be
about 20" x 12". The laser itself lives (ouch), but the transport electronics
are fried. Besides when it was working, it used windows 3.11 and Corel 5 (I
think he said)!!

I am wondering if I can use an Arduino+RAMPS and Marlin/GRBL (???) to drive
the thing back t life. Anyone have some links to a DIY build? I do NOT want
to go to something like Mach3, just way too much overhead for what I need at
the moment.

I am about to dig into the guts to locate the stepper motors to see what I
can find on voltage current etc. Since it was based on a plotter, (no idea
what brand) I am guessing RAMPS might work. Wiki shows win3.11 and Corel-5 as
1994.

Helpful thoughts?

I think GRBL is the way to go here. There's a flavor for the MEGA that
will work with RAMPS, and a flavor for the UNO that will work with the
basic CNC shield (you don't need the bells and whistles of RAMPS for
this job.)

Your main issue with the steppers (if they are steppers) is that they
should be, or be convertible to, 4-wire drive to work easily with the
cheap/common stepper drivers of the current era (Polulu & clones.)

That means 5 wire is bad (internally connected center taps), 6 wire is
OK (just isolate the two center-taps) and 8-wire is OK (just join and
isolate the centers) as well as 4-wire. You can get 5-wire drivers but
they are not as cheap and cheerful as the 4s these days.

--
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