Interesting project of special interest to those putting together 3D printers and CNCs, from Hoektronics:

I’m fascinated by motor drivers, and stepper motors in particular. There is just something so awesome about a modular little unit that will allow you to control a motor. As the motors get bigger, the awesomeness increases.

Lately I’ve been looking at high powered driver chips as part of a plan to build a CNC machine. Toshiba makes some great chips. The TB6560 is the ‘classic’ driver chip they make: 1/16th step, 4amps, and >30 volts. Unfortunately it has some flaws with power sequencing that causes it to blow up if you don’t turn VCC on before VMOT.

They’ve since released a few new driver chips. I designed a board around the beefy THB6064AH. This chip is pretty badass as its a 4.5A, 1/64th step, 50V beast. This thing will do some damage with the right motor. Unfortunately I’ve been struggling with the design…..

Read more.

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!