[kwackers]

For making overlays I usually do two things.
First I use photo paper - this has a decent backing as opposed to paper which can fall apart.
Then I simply use double sided tape, cut up into strips between the keys and edges.

[Me2]

Hello Steve,
Finally finished and running. Using a 32V 2.5 Amp Power Supply and works a treat. I do however have to be careful with the key pad. I'm running inverters on all my machines and have a frequency field being generated. This makes the keypad very sensitive but only when the machine is running. I've put filters on all incoming lines and made sure every thing is grounded to a common but still no difference. I'll probably put an older style 4 x 4 push button keyboard on in the future, they are cheap down at my local electronics shop.
Thanks again for all the help.

Cam

[kwackers]

Is that a metal box?

Mines in a plastic box and have inverters on all my machines too. (One on my lathe and two on my mill).

It would be possible to hack a few extra components around the keypad to reduce it's sensitivity to extraneous fields. Odds are it's picking the field up off you rather than through the cabling. Probably as your finger gets close to the buttons.

If the box is plastic you could try a small piece of foil stuck to the rear of the keyboard on the inside of the box and grounded. It *may* help.

[Me2]

Thanks Steve,
Yep, the box is plastic and I think your spot on with the field coming off me and grounding out through the keypad. I'll try the foil on the back of the keypad and ground it out through the common and see if it makes any difference. I can live with it is but it would be nice to find a solution.
On another note a good mate of mine, Pete, is working on a Gear Hobber and mentioned that you may be interested in developing a code for a chip. There are quite a few of us that would love to do gear hobbing using a simple setup like the rotary indexer. Any progress?

Regards

Cam

[pukury]

Hello.
I made a version with optical isolation "limit1, limit2, step, dir, en"
will work in a device for photo shots.
I apologize for my English - I use translator.
greet.

[Khalid]

awesome

[pukury]

hello
Khalid - thank you very much
what information?
optocoupler - 4N35
What else?
application - standard.
greet.

[J&RMachine]

I am really impressed with these indexers that you guys are building. I could really use one but I really don't have the time or knowlwdge to build one myself.

Does anyone have one for sale or would anybody want to build me one? I have a 12" rotary table with a 90:1 ratio I could build the mount for the stepper motor. I basically need the control box and the stepper motor.

I am located in Salem, Ohio and am more than willing to pay for one of these.

[salzburg]

Look up Damen cnc on the net. They have one for 199.00 euro, that's a very good price.
I think they are a dutch company but they have a english version website.
Look under machines / rotary.

[pukury]

Hello.
test version works ok.
optocouplers protect the processor - unless they are needed.
and certainly no harm.
greet.

[chucketn]

Steve or anyone here making PCBs for this project? I have tried several times to make one but cannot get a decent transfer using the laser print/clothes iron method.
I have programmed the pic and have all the other components except a useable circuit board. I would gladly pay for the board, or 2, or three.

Chuck in E. TN

[joegib]

Hi,

I had the same trouble producing a usable PCB based on Steve's design using toner transfer methods. The close ground plane and fine traces defeated me.

However, member Lucas produced an alternative PCB design (see Post #346, Page 29 for copper and silk PDFs) and this is much easier to replicate by toner transfer methods. Lucas provided a picture of a made-up board at Post #350, Page 30, and more pictures showing the unit operating in Post #364, Page 31. Several other people (including me) have built a unit based on this PCB design, The board is a little bigger than Steve's but this shouldn't be a problem unless you're using a very small enclosure to box the unit.

Maybe you could give the Lucas version a try.

Joe

[mp3]

Steve

Is it possible to add an "IF .... Goto line" statement, to programme mode. This would help when doing things like engraving dial markings, where you mark the longer major marks first, then the intermediate marks, which are shorter, and finally the shortest minor marks. You would need to use a number key for the "IF...Goto" as the "Wait user" will already be used for indexing to the next dIvision.

Malcolm

[GrantM]

@Chucketn - If you have Gerber and drill files I may be able to help you, pm me if you like.

[salzburg]

Can anyone tell me where to connect VRef and enable. I have all these small
rectangles lit up on the screen but thats all I got. Don't know if I made a
mistake programming the chip or because I have not hooked up VRef and enable.
I just don't know where to connect them to.

[kwackers]

Hi Salzburg,

Not sure what you mean by vref and enable - which pins are they?
If you're talking about the vref pins 4&5 then they're not used.

Check that you've got pin 1 at 5v (either direct or through a pull up resistor).

Put the PIC back into the programmer and verify it's contents against the hex file. In particular check that you've programmed the config bits and that they're set correctly (see further back in this thread).

If the PIC is programmed correctly, check the circuit around the crystal (XTAL, C1, C2). If you have the means check pin 14 to see if the clock is running.

One possible check if you have a keypad connected and the buzzer (LS1) does pressing a button result in a beep? If so then the circuit is working.

However in my experience the most common reason (beyond duff programming) for what you describe is bad connections between the LCD and the PIC.
Check each line between the LCD and the PIC for continuity and more importantly check for shorts between adjacent lines. 90% of the time it turns out the issue is in those connections.

Hope this helps, let us know how you get on.

Steve.

[salzburg]

Hi Kwackers,
On the schematic where it says Stepper Driver there is VRef, Dir, Step,
enable and Gnd. The first one, VRef is the one I meant. I guess the
enable I can ignore but I don't know what to do about the VRef.

[kwackers]

Looks like your using a fairly early version of the schematic. The latest version should say V2.0 (I've attached a copy to this post), the one I'm guessing you're using is labelled V1.1. This was superseded fairly early in this thread (sadly I can't edit early posts to remove stuff like this).

In the V1.1 schematic the VRef was originally provided to allow me to set the driver current from within the software by playing with an internal PWM to set the output voltage. This was never used and it's functionality was removed.
So basically you can ignore it (and the filter components R12,R13,C6 & C7).
If you've placed them then they'll do no harm.

There is however an error on that circuit, R1-R4 are shown connected to 5v, they should be pulled to ground, other than that the circuit is fine - just note that pin 1 (MCLR) should be connected to the 5v line...

Steve.

[salzburg]

Thanks Kwackers, I think I got most of it now. R1-R4 I had to grnd.

The only other thing is pin7 and 8 . I won't be using limit 1 and 2 for

now so I think they should go via a 10 K resistor to 5V. Is that correct.

[kwackers]

Yep, that's right.