Arduinos and Microcontrollers ref: Rotary Table Mew 249

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Matt,

I can't see anything wrong either. John's bent pin suggestion is a very good one – it's easily done.

I see no evidence of a solder bridge between Vin and the adjacent Gnd in your photo but it's worth checking both sides of the board. If there is a short your PSU may be clever enough to avoid magic smoke by switching itself off.

I've had trouble gripping two wires in a terminal connector like the one on your PSU – especially when one is smaller than the other. It's worth checking that connection too.

Can you confirm your PSU is 12V? That's the maximum voltage I'd risk on an Arduino.

Do you have a multimeter?

As you've had the Uno powered OK from the USB whilst the motors were powered by the PSU, you must be very close.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 07/02/2017 21:03:42

[dcostaParticipant @dcosta]

Hello everyone.

I'm interested in making the controller for the rotary table with the Arduino.
Most components are easy to acquire, for example, in England. However, I did not find in England a source for the driver that would guarantee that the driver will be shipped and invoiced from England, so if I buy from any of the sources I found on the WWW, I run the risk of not knowing the country And the driver is sent to me from China, the customs rights can reach the value of several drivers.
Can someone knowing of a source in England, please, give me the address?

Best regards
Dias Costa

[john swift 1Participant @johnswift1]

Hi Dias Costa

after a quick web search I see your problem

the first two results I found

1) had an address hear in the UK – hobby components ebay store

delivered in 3 to 6 days , long enough to com from China

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TB6560-3A-Single-axis-Stepper-Motor-Driver-Controller-Board/141106624015?_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131017132637%26meid%3D795afd5d39d349eab462a561b2ff2df1%26pid%3D100033%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D8%26sd%3D161826535159

2) the second via amazon from sourcingmap delivered in 2 days must be from a UK address

John

PS

Hi Matt

I originally tested my arduino & stepper driver with the arduino powered from the USB port

after a quick test with my  17V motor supply powering the arduino I found it initially worked and then stopped responding  – probably the 5V regulator running too hot

and is now OK its back on the USB power

 

    John

Edited to add PS

Edited By john swift 1 on 08/02/2017 00:36:16

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Dias, If you care to look at my web page for the Rotary Table build at the bottom of the page is a list of sources for the various bits and pieces. A lot of the bits are obtainaable from Amazon so no problem with customs even if the bits are shipped frm China!

John

Edited By Journeyman on 08/02/2017 09:48:36

[Matt Homer 1Participant @matthomer1]

checked GND and 12v wires from PSU and got 12v…..directly connected the wires to Sheild and no power….. into the UNO and still no power…. 12v going across the pins on the UNO pcb when I turned it over.

Bit puzzled….cant see any switches on UNO or Shield that relate to this input that could turn something on or off.

Nothing you have to enable via IDE and sketch program ?

ps I do remember a little pop when these wires touched a few days ago so wondering if this has blown something.

As I said all works fine when USB power is in. Suppose the alternative is wire up a Jack Power input and see if that works.

cheers

Matt

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Matt, you never mentioned the "little pop" I would regretfully guess that the on board power regulator (12v to 5v) is fried. Sorry

John

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Journeyman on 08/02/2017 18:30:14:

Matt, you never mentioned the "little pop" I would regretfully guess that the on board power regulator (12v to 5v) is fried. Sorry

John

I agree with John. If the Vin pin is connecting then the on board regulator is almost certainly deceased. There is not much else in the power supply circuit.

The regulator isn't used when the Uno is USB powered, which is why you have a nearly working set up.

On the Arduino site there are recommendations about keeping external power to an Arduino down in the 6 to 9V range. 12V is said to be risky if the Arduino outputs are heavily loaded. I think you've been unlucky though.

Dave

[Matt Homer 1Participant @matthomer1]

Just ordered another one from your amazon link.

Thanks for all your help.

Now to the rotary table !

[dcostaParticipant @dcosta]

Hello, John Swift, good morning.

Thank you very much for your help.
Just as an information element, let me tell you that from the two addresses you showed me, the ebay address sends and invoices from England and the address of Amazon, sends and invoices from Hong Kong.

Best regards
Dias Costa

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Still trying to get this to run without vibration! I tried a different driver a TB6600 based unit but no change.Whilst I was fitting the new driver I also brought the reset button onto the front panel. It works and if set in "run" mode it turns quite nicely for as long as you like. In "angle" mode it's not too bad unless you set a large angle. In "step" mode it starts off OK but then becomes quite noisy. As far as I can tell the angles turned are correct (they agree with the table divisions) and the number of steps is right.

As it is quiet in "run" mode I can only assume that the noise/vibration is being generated by the software but I don't know enough to sort that out. It also seems strange that the vibration gets much worse for the second half of a step.

I made a video and put it on **YouTube** so that you can hear the problem. Any suggestions much appreciated.

John

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Journeyman on 19/02/2017 16:32:54:

Still trying to get this to run without vibration! I

…

 

John

My motor makes similar noises but nowhere near as loud. Is it possible that your bench set-up is acting as a sounding board? (Try lifting the table while the table is turning.)

The other thing that makes a slight difference here is the motor power dip switch settings.

I'm running off a 12V 2A continuous regulated PSU (5A peak). I can't find the reference but I think I read somewhere that: step motors are likely to resonate; that resonance can be minimised by adjusting the voltage; and that stabilised power supplies make the problem worse. But beware, I misremember a lot! Do you have a different PSU to experiment with.

Edit: this link isn't to what I was thinking of, but it's similar.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 19/02/2017 18:07:50

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Dave, the bench is certainly acting as a sounding board but it is still loud even if I pick it up. No spare power supply but I have a feeling it may work better with 24v. What I find really odd is the change in tone half way through a step. It sounds fine if I just set it to run though. Confused

Thanks for the link.

John

Edited By Journeyman on 19/02/2017 18:11:54

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

There is nothing wrong with it. The bench is acting as a sounding box and is amplifying the normal sound the unit makes.

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Thanks Carl, I will bolt it to the mill later and see what it sounds like then. I need to try some test machining with it anyway so a dual purpose run. I know stepper motors make all sorts of weird noises but I still think this is too loud.

John

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

That’s OK.

My post might have seemed a bit perfunctory but I just meant that from what I can see in your clip the unit is working within normal operational parameters.

It is in the nature of stepper motors to have a rather staccato sound and feel to them when running due to the way they are driven.

You could probably quieten it with some passive measures but I doubt there is a huge amount that could be done in either soft or hardware.

Even if there was, is it worth it?

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Carl, I have never used a stepper motor before so I have nothing to compare with other than CNC videos on the web. Possibly a bit old school on my behalf – "if it sounds right it's probably OK, if it sounds rough there could be something amiss!" I will give it a shake down cruise and report back.

John

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

If you activate micro-step[ping in software and on the board, it will probably be quieter (or at least more musical) but it may have less torque.

Neil

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

It's a real shame that quite a few people have come up with an Arduino based rotary table project but have copied one another in that they just use the shield for input.

There are very, cheap keypads made for the Arduino costing about £1.50 each and there are also pre written sketches for them but no one thinks it important enough to link the 3 parts together to give a direct input like the Division Master or Steve Wards very well though out controller.

Instead they rely of 5 buttons to produce layer upon layer of nested menus and for what ? To save £1.50 ?

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Neil, tried micro-stepping makes it slower but not much quieter.

John, knowing very little about Arduinos or programming made this a useful first project. Menus aren't too bad select mode on one switch and then feed in number of steps. Agreed if you needed to set large number of steps or high angle this would take time but anything I am likely to do in the near future will be something like 6 steps or 60deg.

Set it up on the mill. Is a bit quieter but the main thing is it works spot on. Put a bar offcut in the chuck set it for 6 divisions and drilled 6 holes. Then went round again and the drill re-entered the hole exactly. Set it to 60deg and went round again and the drill lined up exactly. Then tried 7 divisions and was surprised that everything worked exactly the second time round as 360 does not divide by 7 exactly.  Box gets slightly warm after an hour messing about but nothing untoward. Well pleased and will now call it a day, awaits to be used in earnest.

John

Edited By Journeyman on 21/02/2017 10:32:50

Edited By Journeyman on 21/02/2017 10:34:04

[HowiParticipant @howi]

Posted by John Stevenson on 20/02/2017 21:41:59:

It's a real shame that quite a few people have come up with an Arduino based rotary table project but have copied one another in that they just use the shield for input.

There are very, cheap keypads made for the Arduino costing about £1.50 each and there are also pre written sketches for them but no one thinks it important enough to link the 3 parts together to give a direct input like the Division Master or Steve Wards very well though out controller.

Instead they rely of 5 buttons to produce layer upon layer of nested menus and for what ? To save £1.50 ?

My thoughts exactly, I have are Steve Wards controller very easy to make, the software works. Why reinvent the wheel?

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

The genus of the project was that I needed a quick, simple solution that would work reliably. It was and it does.

The system was also inexpensive. Quick. Simple. Reliable. Cost effective. It’s what engineering is about.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Hi John,

Glad to know it’s now all good. It is a good system and it works very well. All thanks to Gary Limings software. Happy indexing.

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Posted by John Stevenson on 20/02/2017 21:41:59:

It's a real shame that quite a few people have come up with an Arduino based rotary table project but have copied one another in that they just use the shield for input.

There are very, cheap keypads made for the Arduino costing about £1.50 each and there are also pre written sketches for them but no one thinks it important enough to link the 3 parts together to give a direct input like the Division Master or Steve Wards very well though out controller.

Instead they rely of 5 buttons to produce layer upon layer of nested menus and for what ? To save £1.50 ?

John,

The whole point of the article was to show those with little or no electronics knowledge that systems such as the one covered are within anyone's grasp. It was intended to demonstrate that electronics and microcontrollers definitely have a place within the sphere of mechanical engineering, as they now have had in the real world for over 30 years.

I hoped to show that anyone can use these modular systems to assemble a device in short order that can solve a production engineering problem as it arises.

If I saved £1.50 in the process, so much the better.

Carl.

[BaldricParticipant @baldric]

Carl,
​The article has made me go and buy one of these to play with, and I will be fitting it to my rotary table. I have also started looking at a couple of alternatives:-

1. Using a display using the i2c bus to reduce output pins, this may be slower to drive though, I need to investigate further.
2. Using a rotary controller as an input device instead of up/down buttons, not sure if it will make it any better than a full keypad though.

​I am also considering using this as the basis for a power feed on my mill, may not be the cheapest solution but may be useful for repetitive work such as gutting gears.

So from me a big thank you for the article and providing inspiration.

Baldric

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

Hello Baldric,

That is good to hear. It would be good to use an I2c interface for the display and a rotary controller. Personally I don’t find a menu system particularly onerous or hard to use. My own view is that such refinements aren’t really worth the extra effort.

I’m really intrigued by your idea to Base a power feed on your mill around this system. I have had exactly the same thoughts and it’s something I’m looking into.

Carl.

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