Steve Wards Rotary Table Controller

[Douglas JohnstonParticipant @douglasjohnston98463]

I have just bought one myself and considered just buying the PCB, chip and components but in the end opted for the built and tested unit along with the prebuilt keyboard since the overall saving would have been minimal and the risk is removed.

A great amount of work must go into designing and producing items like this so I don't begrudge the cost, but then again if I was doing this many years ago when I was a poor student things would be different.

Doug

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

Hi guys,

What sort of current can those drivers handle, the ones in Michaels photo? How do they differ from the TB6600 and similar?

Ed.

[Douglas JohnstonParticipant @douglasjohnston98463]

These units are rated at a maximum of 3A per phase Ed but I suspect that is a tad optimistic. I use them with the smaller stepper motors taking about 1 to 2 A and they are fine for that. No use for the more beefy motors used for CNC but perfectly suitable for indexers for rotary tables and the like.

Doug

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

Thankyou Doug, they sound ideal for some nema 17's I have.

Regards,
Ed.

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

I agree that time effort goes into designing these items and I am not attempting to detract from that, I give full credit to anyone whose ideas I make use of and build upon and would hope that the same would be done by anyone who builds on any of my ideas.

In this particular instance, if you read the thread on CNCZone regarding the development of this item, it was developed as a 'fun' project by Kwackers/Steve Ward in 2006 for his own use and he decided in November 2007 to make it available to the wider community for free.

Since the Division Master also appears to have been developed/released at around the same time, who is to say which was developed first, without checking with the individual developers, one chose to capitalise on their invention and sell it for what may be considered as quite large sums of money, the other chose to give theirs away to the wider community for free.

Steve to this day promotes the use of self builds of his division controller on whatever type of circuit board suits the builder, and even provides a set of instructions for building it on strip board. He has made the more recent versions of the firmware closed source to prevent China, etc capitalising on his work, the firmware is however still made available on his site to download for free.

Similar things happen in the RepRap community, many people bought 3D printers in the early days purely to make money from others wishing to join the community, by printing and selling sets of 3D prints and other hard to find parts for sometimes quite substantial profit, this in a community where the products in question are predominantly open hardware and open source software.

Much of this has been now been stamped out by China mass producing these items cheaper than it is economically possible for individuals to do. Yes, China is now profiting instead of individuals, but in this instance the masses gain cheaper access to a community where large numbers of designs are made accessible via sites like Thingiverse for free, that being a site that I regularly check for ideas from and also give back to it with my own designs.

Ultimately we are all "standing on the shoulders of giants" since none of are self taught from first principles that we worked out for ourselves – as has been discussed in the 'secrets' thread either you can choose to share knowledge or in some way try and profit from it.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Just out of curiosity : Does anyone with experience of both devices have any comments on the technical performance of DivisionMaster vs Steve Ward's version ?

Comments on Price, and the related 'value for money' are of no interest to me; this a purely technical question.

MichaelG.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Michael,

I have both. I was involved in the development of the Division master as you can see from the examples page on the original Division master site.

I also have a few of Steve Wards designed controller. Incidentally they were both developed at the same time but neither knew the existence of the other so there was never a question of plagiarism.

I am not willing to get involved on the merits or either of these controllers as it's a waste of time given that some posters on here think a secondhand baked bean tin, found in the gutter is too expense and they could do better.

They obviously don't value their time the way I do mine

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

I have both units, there are many similarities between them and very little difference.

In operation both are intuitive and straighforward to set up and use. Both do the job equally well.

I use the Divisionmaster primarily on a dividing head for simple indexing functionality, The Steve Ward units have been used in this way too but I am now experimenting with 2 of them linked and taking advantage of the program mode to sync 2 axis functions, this is where this device wins out for me as this capability is not present in the DivisionMaster.

If I was starting from scratch, there are more compelling reasons to go for Steves device over the DM

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by John Stevenson on 24/06/2016 11:25:26:

Michael,

I have both. I was involved in the development of the Division master as you can see from the examples page on the original Division master site.

I also have a few of Steve Wards designed controller. Incidentally they were both developed at the same time but neither knew the existence of the other so there was never a question of plagiarism.

I am not willing to get involved on the merits or either of these controllers as it's a waste of time given that some posters on here think a secondhand baked bean tin, found in the gutter is too expense and they could do better.

They obviously don't value their time the way I do mine

.

Thanks for responding, John

I have a DivisionMaster [purchased from Tony Jeffree] … and I remain fully satisfied with its value for money.

… My question was, as I stated, entirely a technical one; but if you don't feel it appropriate to comment then, of course, I respect that.

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Graeme W on 24/06/2016 11:29:48:

I have both units, there are many similarities between them and very little difference.

In operation both are intuitive and straighforward to set up and use. Both do the job equally well.

I use the Divisionmaster primarily on a dividing head for simple indexing functionality, The Steve Ward units have been used in this way too but I am now experimenting with 2 of them linked and taking advantage of the program mode to sync 2 axis functions, this is where this device wins out for me as this capability is not present in the DivisionMaster.

If I was starting from scratch, there are more compelling reasons to go for Steves device over the DM

.

Thanks, also, for you reply, George

As per my response to John … I do already have a DivisionMaster and am entirely satisfied with it.

Your 2-axis configuration of Steve Ward's design is interesting; but I am already committed to using Rex Swensen's software, with Stepper Bee+, for my clockmaking machine.

It's the "very little difference" that I want to understand … This is for my own 'academic' interest [but may be of 'decision-making' benefit to others].

MichaelG.

 

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 24/06/2016 14:22:30

[Stephen Ward 1Participant @stephenward1]

Hi Michael G,
I've never used a DivisionMaster so can't directly compare my divider with it. However the manual for mine is downloadable from the website so you should be able to compare functionality directly(?)

Just to reiterate a point further up, anyone with any questions can feel free to email me using the address on my website, I try to answer most questions within a day or two.

Also, just a quick thank you to all those who've built my divider and posted about it. When I first posted the design on CNC Zone I assumed it would sink without trace, after all surely it's only me that can't count and ends up with 1.5 teeth left on my gear?
It genuinely gives me a warm feeling inside when I read about people building and using it.

Cheers,

Steve.

Edited By Stephen Ward 1 on 02/07/2016 14:55:18

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks, Steve

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

For anyone else who may be interested:

Here is a direct link to Steve's manual

and Here is the 2008 DivisionMaster manual

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 02/07/2016 20:07:58

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