Author Topic: Electronic leadscrew attachment  (Read 14098 times)

Offline picclock

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Electronic leadscrew attachment
« on: January 15, 2011, 09:24:54 AM »
Hi

Here is a video of an electronic leadscrew attachment I made.



I made it because I wanted accurate and repeatable turned sections. Because I
tend to work with large steel parts the traverse rate of the leadscrew can go
below 30 thou per minute allowing an excellent finish.

hope its of interest

picclock

[Moderator, if this is not in the correct section please move it]
Engaged in the art of turning large pieces of useful material into ever smaller pieces of (s)crap. (Ferndown, Dorset)

Offline ieezitin

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2011, 10:02:35 AM »
Picclock

Great!! Neat  works well and I can see the utmost advantage of having that little system. Did you buy the equipment as a kit if so where?

Btw your video was well done and the quality was excellent too, I had it on my full screen and I saw everything very clearly.

God bless    Anthony.
If you cant fix it, get another hobby.

Offline picclock

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2011, 12:06:25 PM »
Sorry, it was from bits and pieces. Laptop PSU, motor from scrap laser printer, even had the cpu lying around from samples (pic16f1936). Some further info on my photobucket account

http://s917.photobucket.com/albums/ad19/picclock/Cheapo%20Electronic%20Leadscrew/

Seems to work quite well and saves a lot of knob twiddling (that just doesn't sound right  :bugeye:)

Its kind of like a halfway house to CNC. Most of the stuff I do doesn't need cnc type input so this is a quick and dirty bodge to get accuracy and repeatability without any programming.

If you want any further info let me know.

Best Regards

picclock

Engaged in the art of turning large pieces of useful material into ever smaller pieces of (s)crap. (Ferndown, Dorset)

Offline j45on

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2011, 12:08:25 PM »
 :jaw: Wow that is a seriously impressive bit of kit you have built there  :bow:
Does it interface through the calliper for measurement or count steps ?
Will you be documenting the build ?
Jason

Offline raynerd

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2011, 01:44:55 PM »
Nice one !! Is that your programme in there?

Chris

Offline picclock

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2011, 02:02:54 PM »
The caliper information is read directly into the microprocessor, and sadly (I have no life) I programmed it in assembler using MPLAB  :loco:

Cos it started out being a lot simpler and grew. If I had known what it would become I would have used C and saved quite a few hours.

Glad you found it of interest.

picclock
Engaged in the art of turning large pieces of useful material into ever smaller pieces of (s)crap. (Ferndown, Dorset)

Offline DavidA

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2011, 02:58:25 PM »
Hey,  I have MPLAB.  all I need to do now is learn how to use it and then I can set about re-programming my temperature logger to sample every minute instead of every second.

It won't be this year though.

Dave.

Offline Jonny

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2011, 07:02:06 PM »
Excellent stuff shouldnt be too hard to use for thread cutting.
May be a market for those without gear boxes!

Offline Brass_Machine

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2011, 11:56:56 PM »
Plenty of interest here. I would like to here more about it. Going to take a look at your link.

Eric
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Offline HS93

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2011, 02:34:08 AM »
Very nice two things where did you get the stepper driver  link.. and the key board looks very profesional how was that done in fact any chance of a build discription as I think a lot of people may be interested.

Peter
I am usless at metalwork, Oh and cannot spell either . failure

Offline slowcoach

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2011, 04:36:18 AM »
yep a build thread  :poke: very useful piece of kit  :clap:

Rob :thumbup:

Offline picclock

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Re: Electronic leadscrew attachment
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2011, 06:08:32 AM »
@ peter
>>where did you get the stepper driver  link<<
Not sure I understand. The stepper motor and its driver came from an epson C1100 printer, they are used to rotate the drum. Most laser printers use similar motors and driver boards. I have made driver boards for other projects using various chips but it was just quicker and easier to use the one that the printer had.

The keyboard was made by printing a pattern on a piece of A4 paper, and covering it with sticky backed clear plastic, as used for college books. The contacts are just sticky backed copper foil (normally stuck around the base of flower pots as a slug deterrent). They detect your finger by measuring a change of capacitance so no moving parts or contacts to worry about. This function is built into the chip I used, a pic16f1936, basically cos I had some lying around.

You can see this at the link I posted earlier.

http://s917.photobucket.com/albums/ad19/picclock/Cheapo%20Electronic%20Leadscrew/

@ johnny
I don't see the point of using it for thread cutting since most lathes come with leadscrew and gears for exactly that purpose. At present there is no linkage between the speed of the lathe and the traverse speed. The gear box multiplies the torque of the motor, and also improves the resolution of the steps. These steppers are commonly used in photocopiers/laser printers.

If I can find any further pictures I'll post them on photobucket.

It's seems very useful as once set you get time off for a tea break  :D .

Best Regards

picclock




picclock





Engaged in the art of turning large pieces of useful material into ever smaller pieces of (s)crap. (Ferndown, Dorset)