How to wire an arduino-based 3-axis CNC machine

Step 3 Soldering and wiring.

I've done this all in one step, but feel free to wire each EasyDriver one at a time, check that it works, and then unplug it from the power and do the next one.

All 3 GND wires from the EasyDrivers are soldered to a single line, which goes to GND on the arduino.

All the positive leads from the stepper power are soldered to a single line.

All the negative leads from the stepper power are soldered to a single line.

TIP: Remember to put the plug cover on the wire BEFORE you solder everything together. Then slide the cover down and over the soldering.

TIP: Don't forget to have everything disconnected while you solder!

Solder the positive and female lines to the female plug.

Double check you didn't wire the board power to the stepper power.  That would be bad.

Do you have a multimeter?  This would be a good time to check your connections.

Plug in the power.  The +5v light in the corner of each board should light up.

Now the wiring is done, time to test it with some code.
 

Comments

[Calrain]

Can I just confirm... I think you mean:
"All 6 GND wires from the EasyDrivers are soldered to a single line, which goes to GND on the arduino."

Instead of
"All 9 GND wires from the EasyDrivers are soldered to a single line, which goes to GND on the arduino."

If I read right.. there are 3 GND per EasyDriver but 2 of those go to the Arduino GND and the other goes to the Stepper motor GND.

Should that read 6 instead of 9?

[aggrav8d]

Yes! My bad. Fixed.

[rwehner11190]

Rather than using a female plug, I cut and stripped the wire from the 5V supply. There are two wires, red and blue, inside. I'm not sure which of the two is live, but I can check with a multimeter. Do you know which of the two wires hooks up to the positive or negative leads from the stepper power leads? Does it even matter? Also, the signal leads from one of the easy drivers attach to pins 8 and 9. There are 'step' and 'dir' outputs on the easy driver, but which of these outputs connect to pins 8 and 9 respectively? Thanks for your help!

[aggrav8d]

I prefer to not cut up a perfectly good power supply because I might want to reuse it on another project later. YMMV. Look at the outside of the wiring - one side should have markings of some kind to indicate it is the positive lead - white stripes, perhaps. If you aren't sure which is positive, use a meter to check. It's cheaper than destroying your hardware. :)

The first few lines of Arduino code say

#define DIR3_PIN 8
#define STEP3_PIN 9

You can alter these values as needed.