[justforfun]

Hello.

Would never have been able to do this without kwackers (Steve), this thing works great, thank, thanks, thanks.



I still need to find a box for the driver, small issue. I am just so happy it is working.

[Marty_Escarcega]

Hi Marty,

By your description the device is working - but it sounds like the display isn't being driven correctly.

Check the lines between the PIC and the display, check continuity and also check for short circuits between the lines.

Steve.

Steve, thanks we found it, crossed a wire from the PC board to the display.
Mine had a screaming pieze, found a bit of solder over on the ground plane. How can we make the piezo's a little louder? Change the value of the resisitor?

Thanks ALOT Steve for continuing to support your build!

I can tell everyone that Allied Electronics has a keyboard that worked for us. YOu can add a legend to it. You have to buy a connector and make sure the pigtail goes DOWN. We figured it out though. I and my buddy each built one together. He did the PC boards for us. Controllers are both working now. We need to wire up the stepper drivers and install the connectors to drive the stepper motor and install connector for the power supply, then hook up the motors and test the motors.

Marty

[Marty_Escarcega]

Hello.

Would never have been able to do this without kwackers (Steve), this thing works great, thank, thanks, thanks.

I still need to find a box for the driver, small issue. I am just so happy it is working.

Nice work so far Roy. Indeed, we thought we got were going to be too big but everything including the stepper driver board fit nicely.

Question, looks like you fit yours to a 6" rotary table? In any case, I would like to know how you built your stepper motor mount and coupled it to the rotary table. Looks like heavy wall aluminum tube, then you added plates to each end? Countersunk some flat head screws to attach the plates to the aluminum tube? How did you couple the shafts? Need some ideas in this area. I have a dividing head and a 6" rotab both will have their own stepper motors, I'll just unplug the motor cable from the controller and move it to the other unit.

Marty

[justforfun]

Question, looks like you fit yours to a 6" rotary table? In any case, I would like to know how you built your stepper motor mount and coupled it to the rotary table.

Marty

Yes I have a 6" rotary. Here is the drawing I made for my mount. If you have any questions just ask, it is very straight forward, assuming the drawing is readable. I'm not sure how will it will show up.

I used what I had on hand to make the mount.

Using one controller for more than one set up is a good idea.

Thanks for the comment, I would have never tried doing this without the help of everyone.

[irving2008]

Yes I have a 6" rotary. Here is the drawing I made for my mount. If you have any questions just ask, it is very straight forward, assuming the drawing is readable. I'm not sure how will it will show up.

I used what I had on hand to make the mount.

Using one controller for more than one set up is a good idea.

Thanks for the comment, I would have never tried doing this without the help of everyone.

pretty similar to my approach, but are you using the stepper motor bearings to control the endfloat on the table spindle (and therefore the backlash) or does your table have taper bearings internally? My smaller 4" doesn't so I am using a double row deep groove bearing to control the endfloat inside the tubing...

[kwackers]

Steve, thanks we found it, crossed a wire from the PC board to the display.
Mine had a screaming pieze, found a bit of solder over on the ground plane. How can we make the piezo's a little louder? Change the value of the resisitor?

Marty

Hi Marty,

If the sounder isn't very loud then it's unlikely that changing the resistor will make it louder, since it suggests the sounder is too high an impedance (in which case it'll be driven fully anyway). Presumably the sounder is in the right way (most are polarised) and the resistor value is correct?
Usually the issue is that the sounders are too loud!

Having said all that there's no harm in trying a different resistor as long as the transistors max collector and base currents aren't exceeded. To be fair most of the values in the circuit are just guestimated rather than calculated - as I've said a number of times, nothing in the circuit is critical.

To all the other guys who contribute to this thread - good work! It's nice to see other people making use of my controller and seeing the finished designs. I was originally in two minds whether to post it, I wasn't sure anyone would be interested.

[justforfun]

are you using the stepper motor bearings to control the endfloat on the table spindle (and therefore the backlash) or does your table have taper bearings internally?

I am not an expert, but I understand that steppers are not to be used to support radial loads.

My rotary table does have thrust bearings to support the worm drive shaft, so once the worm shaft has been adjusted for correct end play, the stepper just rotates that shaft.

Now to Steve, I can not imagine a world where people would not be interested in what you have done with and or for this project.

[salzburg]

HI,
Several rotary table controllers have been built with success apperently.
What I can't figure out how you got the right size for the 40 pin soccket
on the pcb by either shrinking the pcb PDF or the pcb Bitmap file.
When I shrink those I end up with traces that have disapeared.
The Proteus software I don't know how to use so I am stuck at the
moment. I hope someone can help me over this hurdle, it would be greatly
appreciated.
John.

[Marty_Escarcega]

I had the same problem as you did with the bitmap. I found a demo version of Proteus and we were able to print it out to acetate film to the proper scale.

My buddy will make you a board, you drill $20, he drills $30 plus $1 postage in the US.

Marty

[salzburg]

I have already bought a laser printer, photo paper and chemicals, but
thank you for your offer.
The PDF print I could never shrink to the right size but my printer let me
adjust it to fit the 40 pin socket. Looking at the printout I'm thinking
I should have gone with the photoresist method because some of the
traces are thinner than a human hair.

[Marty_Escarcega]

I have already bought a laser printer, photo paper and chemicals, but
thank you for your offer.
The PDF print I could never shrink to the right size but my printer let me
adjust it to fit the 40 pin socket. Looking at the printout I'm thinking
I should have gone with the photoresist method because some of the
traces are thinner than a human hair.

Hmm, that's not right. I hope your solder pads are large enough and you don't vaporize your traces when you solder....
Marty

[justforfun]

HI,
Several rotary table controllers have been built with success apperently.
What I can't figure out how you got the right size for the 40 pin soccket
on the pcb by either shrinking the pcb PDF
John.

I can not help, I used the PDF as is and printed (see my post above for what process I used) the layout and made the boards. I did nothing but print the PDF file, the board had all the correct and required spacings.

Maybe it has something to do with the Adobe software settings.

[Marty_Escarcega]

We had the same problem. Maybe the .pdf works better. We ended up downloading an older version of Proteus to make the mask

[kwackers]

I'm led to believe that the PDF *should* print the right size. Most people I know who've used it have had no problems, however obviously some people are.

My best guess is either some settings in adobe or a printer driver mis-match???

Further back up the thread (post #115) viumau has posted a PCB layout that has the buttons on the board and is done in Eagle which is probably worth looking at.

[pwasbury]

Hi Marty
I'm interested in getting a board, what's the precedure?

Paul

[Marty_Escarcega]

Hi Marty
I'm interested in getting a board, what's the precedure?

Paul

PM Sent.

FYI, its $20 you drill (fairly easy if you have a dremel and a dremel drill press) $30 if he drills it for you plus $1 postage in the US.

If anyone else is interested, just PM me.
Marty
Mesa, AZ

[pwasbury]

PM Sent.

FYI, its $20 you drill (fairly easy if you have a dremel and a dremel drill press) $30 if he drills it for you plus $1 postage in the US.

If anyone else is interested, just PM me.
Marty
Mesa, AZ

Marty,
I sent him a email, Thanks a lot!!

Paul

[Marty_Escarcega]

Marty,
I sent him a email, Thanks a lot!!

Paul

Cool Paul, best of luck with your project. I'd like to say Beevo and I are finished with ours but we stalled. Control is built, we need to wire up the stepper driver and add the connectors to the case.

[toolfool]

Hello all,
This is my first post here although I've been lurking for a while. I'm a retired machinist with a hobby shop in the garage. Someone posted a link to this thread on the Yahoo groups Shumatech DRO site so I checked it out. I was very impressed with this project as I read the previous posts. I decided to take the plunge and give it a try. I have no experience with etching circuit boards but I've built quite a few electronic kits in the past.
I read some and then got the stuff to use the toner transfer method for the board. Quite an experience with it but after many tries at transferring the toner and then a couple at etching, I got a good board. I am sorry that I didn't keep track of the Web site where the author recommended it but glossy magazine paper was the suggestion and it did the trick for me. It doesn't matter if it has printing or not, the paper comes off with water. I had none of the printing scale problems with the PCB on an HP Laserjet P1200 and that went fine.

Kwackers (Steve) a slight criticism if I may. In your effort to keep the electronic components as generic as possible, it is more difficult for someone like me to choose from the vast collection of resistors, diodes, etc. that are available. That is certainly my only criticism.
It was gratifying to plug it in the first time and have it display the opening screen and then go on to work perfectly from there on. I've only jury rigged a driver and motor to It to confirm that it works and it DOES. I still have to get the rotary table ready for it and finish the connections from the enclosure.

Thanks very much for sharing this with us.

Best regards,
Dick K.

[hhogendoorn]

Hello,

I build also Steve's rotary indexer without a Printed Circuit Board, it's easy to do with only wires (see picture).
First I took a frontplate (eddystone box) drilled 16 holes for switches and a square for the display.
ALso a pc board with holes (100 mil) attached the 40 pins dil for the pic and placed a couple of resistors without the limit/control circuit.
only R11 R10 (pull-up) and R6 (pull_down) R1..R4 are placed.
Also the motor driver + Trafo is in the same box (2x L6203 + L297), I did on the same way as the PIC board.

It took some days to solder and : It worked the first time power up (Vertex BS0)!!

Thanks for the software + schematic Steve!
Hans