Arduinos and Microcontrollers ref: Rotary Table Mew 249

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

[Rod AshtonParticipant @rodashton53132]

Carl – Your inspiring MEW article arrived the same day as my Arduino for idiots starter kit. Just the beginning of a long journey for me. But seeing something practical like your table gave me hope beyond my normal attention span. If I graduate it would be interesting to have a go at a fourth axis conversion perhaps.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Hi Rod,

Thanks for your kind comments. I am really glad you got something out of the article. There is no mystery to any of this microcontroller stuff.

The Arduino platform is in my opinion the best way in. It’s designer, Massimo Banzi, is a true visionary. He spent his childhood tinkering with all things mechanical and electrical. He realised that this is the best way to learn.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

By the way, a fourth axis is perfectly do-able. The best thing about the Arduino is you can achieve practical results in a short time, with far less intellectual overhead than with say a Pic.

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Carl,

No mystery you say, but as soon as you access the Arduino site it throws all kinds of options and boards at you without any hint of where and with what to start (from scratch).

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Kwil,

Whilst I was off work sick for eight months I picked up an Arduino Uno off of the internet, Amazon, downloaded the IDE from the Arduino website and just followed the websites training pages, I've also bought project books. I have uno's that are genuine boards and copies but they all work the same, I'm also still playing with it and learning the programming as I go. There are other Arduino boards which are less useful or more powerful than the uno but the uno seems the most popular.

You can get most of the hardware, books and shields from Maplins, its not expensive either.

Martin P

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

Hi Kwil

You could have downloaded the Arduino software whilst there, versions to suit the device you use.

I haven't read either of the articles described on these pages but have a version from Chuck on the HMEM site, will be trying the program (sketch) out from the DM article soon, it operates on the electronic gear I already have, that's an Arduino UNO R3 board, a TB6560 3A 1 axis stepper driver controller and a 16×2 Shield LCD screen/keypad, I already had a 12v DC PSU and a suitable stepper motor, cost of purchased parts inc pp was £16

Makes a very useful addition to a div head or rotary table.

Emgee

[Rod AshtonParticipant @rodashton53132]

A thumbs up for the Arduino Uno Beginners Kit. (if that is what you are) Very good guide book and project components for the unelectrical. – If you are Cad/Cam minded, Estlecam have very interesting free programme for the Uno, to run a router. With 3D scanning, tool setting and auto leveling.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Rod Ashton on 04/12/2016 18:01:40:

If you are Cad/Cam minded, Estlecam have very interesting free programme for the Uno, to run a router. With 3D scanning, tool setting and auto leveling.

.

Rod,

Google keeps pushing me to Estlcam [without the second 'e'] **LINK**

http://www.estlcam.com/index.php

… is that the right one ?

Thanks

MichaelG.

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by martin perman on 04/12/2016 17:03:02:

I have uno's that are genuine boards and copies but they all work the same,

You're lucky in that case. Most of the Chinese copies won't work with the standard Arduino USB driver for programming. (There is a driver, that works, available but you have to know and dig it up).

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Kwil,

The great thing about this forum is that we can have discussions about issues that I’d love to have covered in my article but for which there just wasn’t space.

An uno is definitely the best way to start out, but you don’t need to shell out that much. You can get a copy…not strictly the correct term as the whole Arduino project is open source…for considerably less.

As Bandersnatch says you need to get the right driver for these but its not difficult. I will post a link for that shortly.

[Rod AshtonParticipant @rodashton53132]

Michael – Yes thats the one. Worth getting into more deeply.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks, Rod

MichaelG.

[john swift 1Participant @johnswift1]

Hi Carl

after reading your project in MEW 249 I'm having a look at the arduino

it could be an alternative to hard wired logic in my own projects

now I see the Atmel chip with the Arduino boot loader is available from Farnell

http://uk.farnell.com/arduino-org/a000048/mcu-8bit-atmega-20mhz-dip-28/dp/1848694

 

with your project being based on a old design

the one change I would consider making is to replace the "TB6560" stepper driver with the later THB6064AH drivers that survive being run at their published limits unlike the TB6560

John

PS

I see you adapting Gary Liming's design no different to the likes of the British Radio Corporation (HMV, Ferguson ,Marconi, Fidelity) building radios and TV's based on Mullard's application design examples with minimal alteration

Edited By john swift 1 on 04/12/2016 20:19:22

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by john swift 1 on 04/12/2016 20:18:10:

Hi Carl

after reading your project in MEW 249 I'm having a look at the arduino

it could be an alternative to hard wired logic in my own projects

now I see the Atmel chip with the Arduino boot loader is available from Farnell

http://uk.farnell.com/arduino-org/a000048/mcu-8bit-atmega-20mhz-dip-28/dp/1848694

Is there some advantage to this rather than the pro mini which I have been using? With the pro mini you need another programmer board, but that is a one off and cheap, and the pro mini has its own resonator and voltage regulator. It even has a built in reset button and a LED you can make flash. Useful at times. I've just bought 10 off pro mini for £22 from UK supplier, so cheaper than the Farnell item

Can you also point me in the right direction for the enhanced stepper driver?

[john swift 1Participant @johnswift1]

Hi Duncan

I was thinking if I don't need the USB port , I can replace several 5V logic IC's with the Atmel chip + crystal and save the space taken by the Arduino uno board

I expect I can either use a Atmel in circuit programmer or Arduino uno board to program the Atmel chip

John

PS

the THB6064 driver can either be bought as a kit to assemble your self

http://www.massmind.org/Techref/io/stepper/THB6064/index.htm

or

ebay , amazon etc

first web search result –

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-THB6064AH-JP-6445A-Single-Axis-Stepper-Motor-Driver-/121384856405

 

PPS

Atmel programmer for Arduino

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USBASP-USBISP-ISP-Programmer-Cable-Adapter-KK2-0-KK2-1-Atmel-AVR-ATMega-ARDUINO-/131241223483?var=&hash=item1e8e96253b:m:my5ajIyIlNHKV-vZffc0xBg

 

Edited By john swift 1 on 05/12/2016 01:13:45

[herbert punterParticipant @herbertpunter99795]

Very good project, Carl!

Could you give the spec of the stepper motor please?

Thanks, Bert

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Anyone wanting to get deeply into AVR (or get eth most out of arduino) should visit teh atmel website and download Atmel Studio 6 which includes a library of datasheets.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

John

The pro mini is very much smaller than the uno (0.6" * 1.1&quot, although still bigger than a single chip

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

There are sooooo many Arduino versions available – plus numerous Arduino-compatible boards and other single board computers. Of course, many of them will fall by the wayside but it's fantastic to see so much innovation and development happening out there.

Like most of our generation, I've been messing with micros for much of my career but the upcoming generation has been born into this wave of technology, which is so much more powerful, cost effective and user friendly than what we were used to. It's fascinating to think where this is leading…

Murray

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Muzzer on 05/12/2016 12:58:21:

…

It's fascinating to think where this is leading…

Murray

Too true. Lots of recent progress around the world towards making quantum computing a practical proposition, plus advances in very high density fast storage.

A working quantum computer will be the bees knees, orders of magnitude more capable than existing technology. There is a risk that it will make humanity redundant, which is OK as long as I still get my pension!

Dave

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

Whilst I applaud the development of the Arduino, and accept that the original designer has made very little from the project due to clones, (if you don't want your design copied – don't make it open hardware) the Uno, Duemilanove, Mega boards all use a non standard spacing that perpetuates the use of shields, which are often highly overpriced for what they actually offer.

The removal of the FTDI chip in favour of the CH340G, for USB programming, dramatically reduced the cost of the clones.

I only have a couple of Arduino Uno clones, preferring the smaller size of the Pro Mini (£13.33 for 10 from China), or Nano which includes a micro USB connection (£17.20 for 10 from China), these both use standard breadboard spacing.

I also buy suitable through hole chips with the required number of pins direct from RS (ATtiny, ATmega168p, ATmega644p, ATmega1248p), as they actually seem to be the cheapest, all of which can be programmed via the Arduino IDE and the one off purchase of a programmer, although these are actually many times the price of the above Mini or Nano alternatives.

The 8, 14, 20pin ATtiny and 40 pin ATmega chips can also be programmed via the IDE with a little tweaking of the configuration files (ATtiny chips can also be bought in SMD form on breadboard compatible boards for pennies from China).

For those interested in PIC development, don't forget that Microchip offers a free sample service for much of their range – I have yet to actually pay for any of my PIC microcontrollers and clone PicKit programmers from the Bay also work just fine..

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Zebethyal on 05/12/2016 16:02:14:

PIC

I'll avert my eyes!

=:-0

Neil

[IanTParticipant @iant]

I enjoyed the most recent MEW – including the Arduino articles.

I've had an Arduino Uno for a while now but have also been playing with a Microchip PIC32 (USB Starter Kit). The PIC32 is a very powerful device and it can be programmed in 'C' using the IDE from Microchip (MPLAB X) or there is also Chipkit (MPIDE) which enables it to be programmed pretty much with the same code as (an Atmel based) Arduino – as used and described in the MEW articles. I do like Arduino btw….however…

I've recently (last week!) purchased another PIC32 based 'controller' system that I think many here would find just as easy as the Arduino (and maybe much more so) – I certainly have (even after just a few days). You can assume that I'm very impressed with it…

Micromite Plus is a 'controller' system developed in Australia by a guy called Geoff Graham. It is the latest in quite a long line of PIC32 based micro-computers and controllers developed by Geoff and published in Silicon Chip (an Australian hobby electronics mag). Geoff's Maximite & Micromite systems are much better known in the Antipodes than over here and understandably have a loyal following there. The good news is that there is now a UK based outlet for Micromite products and PCB/Kits, so hopefully they will become much better known here too. I should add that the software (in various forms) is freely downloadable, including the source code (and that I have no vested interest in this other than as a happy customer). The documentation is excellent (and also free to download too)

Why am I a "Fanboy"? (a term reserved for advocates of a particular technology or language I believe – and one that can probably also still be applied to an OAP?)

Well the Micromite is just so easy to use. I plugged my Explorer 64 board (via the USB) into my laptop and using a free terminal emulator programme (Tera Term) started editing and running programs straight away – just like with my Arduino Uno in fact… except that there is no "Edit, Compile, Run" cycle involved.

The high level language used is an interpreter, so at the command prompt > I can test/debug and write programs in "immediate" mode. The Editor runs directly on the PIC32 (a PC-based version is also available) and I can examine the I/O pins directly for instance. Of course no interpreter will ever run as fast as a compiler will…but the PIC32 is a miniature mainframe and even the slowest Micromite (a 28pin DIL package running at 48Mhz) can do 30,000 code lines a second. My 64 pin Explorer runs about 2-3 times faster (at 120Mhz) …quite fast enough for most things in practice. Did I mention the 100Kb of available programme space – or the comms protocols supported – which include I2C, Asynch Serial, RS232, IEEE 485, SPI and 1-Wire? It's an incredible piece of technology…and very affordable!

So what's the catch?

Well – that high level Interpreter is something called 'BASIC' (oh dear!!) and that one fact will (I suspect) be sufficient to immediately put off any "Professionals" reading this post. But to anyone else – if you want a simple route into embedded controllers – then this is an excellent way to do it. Micromite BASIC (MMB) is more than capable of writing clean, structured modern code (there are no Line Numbers, REMs or GOTOs required – unless you want them of course!). It is an updated version of Microsoft BASIC (and still largely backwards compatible if needed). It has also been designed to let you simply access the PIC32 's complex hardware peripherals, plus it supports a useful range of external devices (sensors, SD cards, LCD screens). Should you need other facilities, then the language is extensible. Suffice it to say – that MMB can deliver a very comprehensive and powerful embedded solution. Everything is all there at your fingertips (and no "include" files)

So, if you are new to this 'compute' game or returning after many years absence (as in my case) then have look at Geoff Grahams site. Highly recommended

Geoffg.net/micromite

Regards,

IanT

A new (and elderly) PIC32/Micromite 'Fanboy'

[john swift 1Participant @johnswift1]

Hi Duncan

the Arduino Nano looks like a useful component to incorporate into DIY projects

now I'm spoilt for choice

John

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