Author Topic: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion  (Read 70093 times)

Offline raynerd

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #25 on: December 07, 2009, 06:27:38 PM »
Finally, last one on here now until I get some videos of it in action but I have finally mounted it to the wall. It is on removable brackets so can come off quickly if needed.

The piccy shows it mounted next to my mill. Sorry about the background, the ladders in the background are the old redundant ladders down to the coal bunker, now workshop.



Sure, I could tart it up a bit but it does its job 100% and it works great. It also had enough torque to actually mill on the rotation. If any of you can put the electronics together or find someone who can for you, then it is certainly a worthy project and pretty easy!

Chris

Offline NickG

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #26 on: December 07, 2009, 06:55:41 PM »
Nice 1 Chris, looks great.

Now where is that clock  :poke:  :lol:

Nick
Location: County Durham (North East England)

Offline raynerd

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #27 on: December 07, 2009, 07:07:00 PM »
Don`t talk about the damn clock. In all honesty I`m trying to cheer myself posting something that has gone right! I`ve just buggered up the wheel trying to cross it out about 20 minutes ago :(  It needed re-making anyway but for some reason I still feel bad that I`ve totally ruined it  :doh: 

Offline sbwhart

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #28 on: December 08, 2009, 02:25:33 AM »
Don`t talk about the damn clock. In all honesty I`m trying to cheer myself posting something that has gone right! I`ve just buggered up the wheel trying to cross it out about 20 minutes ago :(  It needed re-making anyway but for some reason I still feel bad that I`ve totally ruined it  :doh: 

Don't let that little mishap get you down:- we've all got scrap boxes, look on it as a great learning experience.  :D :D :D :D  :nrocks:  :nrocks:  :nrocks:

Have fun

Stew
A little bit of clearance never got in the road
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Location:- Crewe Cheshire

Offline raynerd

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #29 on: December 08, 2009, 03:11:55 AM »
Cheers Stew, my scrap box is building up but like you say, once you have made a mistake it is unlikely that I will make the same one again! It is certainly a good way of learning however most infuriating  :bang:

Chris

Offline NickG

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #30 on: December 08, 2009, 03:33:16 AM »
Don't worry Chris, my whole engine might be in the scrap box soon  :lol:
Location: County Durham (North East England)

bogstandard

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #31 on: December 08, 2009, 05:06:42 AM »
Don't worry about making scrap and having to recycle it.

I have never met anyone yet who can honestly say they haven't made a mistake of some sort or another.

In my posts, you only see the good bits. I too have a recycle box with bits and pieces that have gone wrong.

All you can do, is kick yourself up the a**e and vow to never make the same mistake again, which invariably you will do again some time in the future.

Admitting to your mistakes is the best thing you can do, otherwise people will be watching for you to walk across the local park lake.


Bogs

Offline Darren

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #32 on: December 08, 2009, 06:56:50 AM »
Chris I spent all day yesterday making some scrap, that's why you see nothing from me .....  :)

Live and learn .... at least I now know what not to do .... maybe next time I'll get it right  :coffee:
You will find it a distinct help… if you know and look as if you know what you are doing. (IRS training manual)

Offline raynerd

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #33 on: December 31, 2009, 05:17:56 AM »
Finially managed to take a short video of it in action. Sorry, my hand gets in the way a little when reaching across the camera to press the go button but you can certainly see how it works. Much easier than using the division plates but the biggest advantage is the ability of cutting divisions  1-999 without the need for division plates as well as the other functions the indexer provides:


Offline sbwhart

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #34 on: December 31, 2009, 05:35:17 AM »
Nice one Chris  :headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

Looks a good wheel  :thumbup:

Cheers

Stew
A little bit of clearance never got in the road
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Location:- Crewe Cheshire

Offline NickG

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #35 on: December 31, 2009, 05:41:08 AM »
Impressive stuff Chris, well done!

Is the motor enough to hold it there in place without locking the table each time?

Brilliant.

NIck
Location: County Durham (North East England)

Offline John Stevenson

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #36 on: December 31, 2009, 05:51:26 AM »
I have the Divisionmaster version and I'd be dead in the water without it, Can't see much difference between the two units, probably only small but once you have used one you will never go back.

I use mine on a big Hoffman dividing head with remote power and driver, a 6" vertex, a small BS0 dividing head and as a trial I converted one of those tiny 4" tilting rotabs from Chronos with a type 17 motor to see it it worked, it did but it's very low powered.

John S.
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Offline raynerd

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #37 on: December 31, 2009, 08:18:52 AM »
NickG - seems to hold fine without since I`m cutting accross the wheel. I did keep locking it up at the start but when I was playing with the first couple of failed wheels it didn`t seem to make any difference.

John - Yea, they seem to work very similar. I did make contact with Tony Jeffree a couple of times for a little info, I also like what he did with the sherline or was it taig cnc conversion. It was quite easy to setup and if you can get someone to build the circuit the cost is great. I`m currently doing a few circuits now if you`ve seen my other thread so hopefully in a few months I`ll be able to make another for another machine. May even make a few spare if time allows..... 

Offline j45on

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #38 on: October 13, 2010, 04:03:05 PM »
craynerd
sorry I know this is an old thread but I have only just found it after following the link in your Stuart 10V Build Log
Anyway I really want to convert my RT and I think I can do all of this bar programming the pic but I will worry about that when the time comes
The problem is that I noticed the latest version on mycncuk is version 2.0 and is twice the file size as the one linked to in this thread but I cant seem to get an account on mycncuk
 :scratch:
Would it be possible to host the zip file here as well ?
Jason

Offline kwackers

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #39 on: October 13, 2010, 04:21:07 PM »
@j45on

Post #111 on CNCZone (http://www.cnczone.com/forums/671791-post111.html) contains pretty much everything you need.
With the exception of a later version of the firmware on post #128 (http://www.cnczone.com/forums/681292-post128.html).

I could do with 'refreshing' CNCZone and putting all the latest stuff in a post. Annoyingly it won't let you edit earlier posts otherwise I'd simply update the initial post with the latest stuff.

Plenty on there to read though! If you get stuck, start a thread on here and I can answer your questions.
Steve.

Offline j45on

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #40 on: October 13, 2010, 04:32:11 PM »
Many thanks Kwackers  :bow:
I'm off to ebay for bits now  :thumbup:
Jason

Offline cidrontmg

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #41 on: October 13, 2010, 10:18:11 PM »
Many thanks Kwackers  :bow:
I'm off to ebay for bits now  :thumbup:

Me too. Very impressive!  :bow:
 :wave:
Olli
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Offline slowcoach

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #42 on: October 14, 2010, 04:34:36 AM »
Hi Kwackers,

Will this PIC be ok to use on the division project PIC18F452-I/P and finally which version of the firmware should I use? (I have a Soba 6" rotary table).

Cheers
Rob  :thumbup:

Offline kwackers

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #43 on: October 14, 2010, 05:07:27 AM »
@slowcoach

That's the correct PIC (make sure it's a 452 and not a 4520, I spent several weeks emailing back and forth trying to fix a strange issue for a guy in the States only to eventually discover he'd used the wrong PIC!)

You can use either version of the firmware in the links above, all I changed from one to the other is the manner in which the worm ratio of the table is entered.

E.g. In the firmware in the first link you type the worm ratio (the firmware assumes a 400 step per revolution stepper), in the second link you enter the worm ratio multiplied by the number of steps per rev of the motor.
So with a 90:1 worm you would enter 90 in the first and 90*400 (36000) in the second. The reason for this is because some people were using strange home made worm and motor combinations that wouldn't work with the earlier version of the firmware, this is unlikely to be an issue for you.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2010, 05:35:19 AM by kwackers »

Offline slowcoach

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #44 on: October 14, 2010, 05:32:59 AM »
@cidrontmg

That's the correct PIC (make sure it's a 452 and not a 4520, I spent several weeks emailing back and forth trying to fix a strange issue for a guy in the States only to eventually discover he'd used the wrong PIC!)

You can use either version of the firmware in the links above, all I changed from one to the other is the manner in which the worm ratio of the table is entered.

E.g. In the firmware in the first link you type the worm ratio (the firmware assumes a 400 step per revolution stepper), in the second link you enter the worm ratio multiplied by the number of steps per rev of the motor.
So with a 90:1 worm you would enter 90 in the first and 90*400 (36000) in the second. The reason for this is because some people were using strange home made worm and motor combinations that wouldn't work with the earlier version of the firmware, this is unlikely to be an issue for you.


Thanks Kwackers,

Always worth checking with the designer, I have seen a few 4520 on the web and did wonder if they would work or not. Appreciate your info on the firmware differences. Looking forward to building this project. Thanks again for sharing this very useful piece of kit   :thumbup::bow:  :bow::thumbup:  Now where did I put that soldering iron   :dremel:

Rob

Offline raynerd

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #45 on: January 04, 2012, 07:16:40 PM »
...pulling this one up from the dead!!

I`ve just finished making two more of these, both will be posted on here shortly but I have a question. I`m fitting one of these to my friends 6" Myford rotary table which looks damn like the vertex rotabs I`ve seen and apparently he has taken the handwheel off and the shaft is 12mm. Now the stepper motor, depending on which we purchase has either a 6mm or 1/4" shaft. Where can I get an oldham coupling with one half 12mm and the other 6mm?

Arc Euro sell a 33mm dia hub with a 12mm bore but the 33mm hub only goes down to 10mm bore.

I know some of you guys have converted 6" rotabs and I think John Stevenson's does loads of these...what couplings do you guys use?

Chris

Offline John Stevenson

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #46 on: January 04, 2012, 07:43:08 PM »
Any of the 25mm ones can be bored out to 12mm.

John S.
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Offline Chuck in E. TN

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #47 on: January 05, 2012, 06:09:34 AM »
craynerd, Where are you getting the printed circuit board for this? I purchased all the discrete parts x3, got the pic programmer, programmed the pic, but failed misserably on building the circuit on project board.
I have tried several times to use the laser printer toner transfer method to make a circuit board, but so far have failed to get a transfer good enough to etch.
 
Chuck
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MicroMark 7x14, HF X2 mill, Green 4x6 saw. Harbor Freight 170A mig

Offline raynerd

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #48 on: January 05, 2012, 02:41:30 PM »
Hi Chuck, I`ve been using photo etching. I made a UV exposure box a while back:  http://www.raynerd.co.uk/?p=493
and it has taken a long time but I`m getting better at etching recently and have had much more success with this method. I had a bit of a disaster when my power supply went awol and started feeding the wrong voltage to my UV LED box which is strange because the results ended up being that the photoresist wasn`t broken down properly (I expected with a higher voltage the UVs would be more intense but perhaps the LEDs were being over driven?).   

I`ve never used the toner transfer method so can`t help you there but what I would advise it to go back to Kwackers original post on CNC zone and around post number 346, page 29  there is a post by "Lucas" in which he provides an alternative copper screen and silk screen with much bigger tracks. Even with my "improved skills" at etching, I`ve been using Lucas` pcb design as it is just much easier to produce and is more forgiving in terms of errors in the etching. Infact, even when I was having the issues with my LEDs, I still got a working board from it, despite the etching process being a shambolic effort!!

He adds an extra cap across two LCD lines which I`m not sure about as I`ve never done this myself and they aren`t on Kwackers pcb. There is also an extra cap across the area that is regulating the voltage. But the board works 100% and the pcb is good.

I`m now back at work but if you are still struggling in the next few weeks, let me know and I`ll see if I can get one etched and sent over to you.

All the best.
Chris

Offline raynerd

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Re: 4" Vertex Rotary Table CNC conversion
« Reply #49 on: January 05, 2012, 02:47:46 PM »
John, sorry, I read this earlier today and sent the info to my friend to order them and forgot to reply. Many thanks for the information!

Chris