BUT before you do that, you need to remove the old parallel port driver board.

Always up to learn something new and keep my skills on the cutting edge.

Alright guys, this is a culmination of weeks of reading, researching and determination.

Its my first instructable so hope this helps get you where you need to go.

A little bit of background, before we start: The 3020, 3040 and 6040 (and the more obscure 2015, 2016 and 2020) CNC router milling machines that come out of China are hugely popular in the hobbyist and professional circles.

If you are a DIY type, these machine offer a great way to repeat processes and basically do some things that no hand tool will allow you to do.

For the professionals, these machines with their relatively accurate leadscrewballscrew assemblies allow for another machine to be pumping away making parts if the machine machine is occupied with a job.

All in all, these inexpensive machines (ranging from 600-2500 shipped DHL) are a great way to get into CNC.

They can be found all over eBay and Aliexpress, in my experience, you can find marginally cheaper options on Aliexpress and their buyer protection is much better than eBays.

The range of these models makes for choosing the right one for your shop pretty easy, the more expensive and larger ones (typically 3040 and 6040) will have the more accurate ball screw type linear movements instead of a typically trapezoidal lead screw.

You can tell which model has the leadscrew or ballscrews by the letter after the model.

T will have trapezoidal leadscrews and a 3040Z will have ballscrews (ballscrewz):D I have experience with both the ball screw and lead screw type movements, for the money you are paying, its better to get a machine with ball screws as they wear better and very little, if no backlash (side to side play) is present.

These machines will come setup with stepper motors and typically have cable tracks already built in, also they will come with a controller box.

The controller box on almost all of these machines will come with a very old Mach 3 style Parallel Port interface.

Woodpecker 2.8 Grbl Software To The

Signal pulses will be sent from the Mach 3 software to the port and that drives the motors and makes the CNC machine come alive.

I have been a Mac person since 2003 so I wont switching back to PCs anytime soon, so when I heard you could convert this to Arduino powered, I went from that CNC is a neat tool to that CNC will be mine.

Woodpecker 2.8 Grbl Crack Open The

Youll see in the video that the conversion is complete, but when you crack open the box, youll basically see three main components.

The power source, this will either be a coil or in my case, a perforated metal box.

The driver board, youll recognize this because the leads from the connection cables to the XYZ ports will be attached to this.

If you had a board like my 3020, they will be super easy to undo since they are screw terminals.

The power leads from the power source should also be present, this also needs to be undone) 3.

The spindle VFD (Variable Frequency Driver), this maybe a closed box or an open circuit board.

Youll recognize this since it will have a control board and dial to control the spindle speed.

If you forget the label the XYZ cables, dont worry, just follow them to the ports on the back and you can see which is which.

Add Tip Ask Question Comment Download Step 3: Prep the Arduino and CNC Shield.

The Arduino needs to be flashed with the most current version of GRBL.

GRBL is an open source G-Code interpreter, it is to CNC machines as Marlin firmware is to 3D printers.

You can find it here: Once you have GRBL on your Arduino, you can mount it into the case.