Mill Electrotrickery Part 1 - Stepping out with Arduino

[kwackers]

I was going to re invent the wheel by designing a dividing controller with a PIC18F452 micro controller and then I found this: http://www.worldofward.com/ Looks like an interesting project.

It's an excellent device and I recommend you build one immediately... 

[Noitoen]

It's an excellent device and I recommend you build one immediately... 

Did you build one?

Now I saw it's been mentioned before

[kwackers]

It's an excellent device and I recommend you build one immediately... 

Did you build one?

Now I saw it's been mentioned before

The site and design is mine.
No idea how many have been built but even if only those have mailed me asking questions have made one then there are a couple of hundred out there. Quite a lot of build logs on CNCZone too (and a couple on here).

[RodW]

Sorry,guys. I have been a bit busy sorting out my lathe stand after I tipped my lathe over a few weeks ago I finally got the lathe on it tonight and have a bit of tidying up to do

It features removable wheels so it can be moved around if necessary. You just need to stomp on the lever and bolt the legs on.



And insert a couple of bolts to hold it up.



and coolant which is not complete



Anyway, now I have got this far, I will have a clear head to get back onto this project in a few days.

I will post up a project log on this too but I feel better getting that off my chest! 

[RodW]

Hard to believe its been close to 2 years since I started this thread. I finally got my act together and got some code written for this project. Every time I made another start, I'd get busy and forget  about it again or hit a big snag. I've used an open source form library for the interface (menus and data entry) which is quite nice but I had to add a couple more field types to the class.

Anyway, spurred on by a couple of guys keen on the Arduino over at HMEM (one of whom is building a dedicated Arduino based Rotary Table controller board), I dusted out my code and in the last couple of days have finally got something running using a Gecko controller, Arduino UNO and a Freetronics Display and keyboard. The code is also compatible with the Sainsmart board but you might have to watch the stepper ports. The Freetronics board has 5 buttons (up, down, left, right, select).

Features included are:
1. High performance interrupt driven stepper driver using the Arduino Timer1 library (500 kHz in theory)
2. Dividing mode where you enter the number of steps
3. Move an arbitrary angle defined in degrees minutes and seconds
4. Jog mode, turns continuously left or right while button is held down, jogs a defined number of steps on up/down buttons.
5. Set speed up or down in 5% increments of a designated  frequency range
6. Internally, angles are stored as a long data type containing the number of seconds (to avoid floating point maths)
7. Nice simple menu driveninterface on a 2x16 char LCD display.
8. Quick data entry by cursoring left and right long a field and changing the value under the cursoe using the up and down buttons.
7. Definitions of the maximum and minimum frequency in Hz for your stepper so you can look at a data sheet to set it up. Used for speed control.
8. Set/goto home position.
I hope to eventually store setup data in the Arduino EEPROM but right now, I want to complete fitting it to my 9:1 6" Vertex rotary table over the weekend so I can check for final bugs.

The Arduino was crying out for a good rotary table controller as you don't need to be an electronics expert to put something together as you can do it with no soldering at all these days!

Code and supporting libraries are able to be downloaded from here
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/showthread.php?t=24118

Enjoy!

[vtsteam]

Thanks for bringing this back -- I hadn't read it first time up -- definitely of interest, and glad to see you're back on it.   

[RodW]

Thanks for bringing this back -- I hadn't read it first time up -- definitely of interest, and glad to see you're back on it.   

I'm beginning to wonder why I started to code a rotary table controller when I have fitted a DRO on my Seig SX3 mill. I cut the plate  after centering on a square plate using the Circle diameter function on the DRO (including the 4 holes in the corners)



While I had the setup, I used the SX3 tapping feature to cut the threads.

And the complete kit shown here including the flange from a Vertex 6" rotary table that the plate mounts to.



The keyed adapter (first time using a broach)


And the other end



and mounted it all up


This makes more sense when you look at the rotary table



And the Gecko Stepper driver I am using



and the LCD display




So currently key supported features are:
1. Divide a specific number of divisions in a circle
2. Divide a specific angle (in degrees, minute, seconds entered by the user
3. Jog - Turn the table  (left or right) while finger is on the left/right buttons
4. Jog - Single step (left or right) based on a user specified angle (default 0.5 degrees or 30 minutes)
5. Continuous turning - turn the table continuously in the current angle (left or right) until the SELECT button is pressed