It might not look much, but on the table is the start of getting the Bridgeport converted to CNC operation. Nick brought his new motor and encoder round, fitted to a neat housing he made. I’d picked up an ODrive and old power supply, which we coupled to a Raspberry Pi. Igor kindly donated memory card and we were on our way!

By the time the evening was out, we’d managed to get the motor to turn through a fixed angle in either direction, run continuously at a fixed rpm, and apply a holding torque. Three critical operations for CNC. A great start, although there’s no doubting we’ve still got a long way to go.

Next steps are getting some beefier motors, fitting the odrive into a better housing and upgrading the power supply.