# Electronic leadscrew for my lathe



## picclock (Jan 16, 2011)

Hi

Not sure if this is the correct place for this, but its new and I made so here goes.

This was born out of the frustration of trying to accurately turn parts consistently, and the fact that the slowest leadscrew speed was far too fast for my needs. The speed of traverse on this can be set to < 30 thou per minute.

Hope its of interest.

[ame]http://vimeo.com/18780151[/ame]

with additional pictures at

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

Some rough design notes are in the download section. If you need any further info I'll do my best to oblige.

Best Regards

picclock


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## ttrikalin (Jan 16, 2011)

enjoyed it?
loooooved it!

very neat idea! 
 :bow: :bow: :bow:

best 
tom in MA


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## chalky (Jan 17, 2011)

Hello all, This subject is of great interest to me but having refered to Picclocks brief notes, not written in" metalstrangler " is thus a total non understand for me.

The product is great and raises questions -
 1. does the PIC have the capacity to do other things ,for example operate a rotary table to divide a circle into a predetermined no of parts for gear cutting?
 2. Could the unit be used to control the rotary movement of a cutter in a tool & cutter grinder to follow the lateral movement of the cutter holder.(follow the helix of the cutting edge) .This I find to be a great problem in sharpening small end mills.

 Thanks for your time. chalky.


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## joegib (Jan 18, 2011)

chalky  said:
			
		

> 1. does the PIC have the capacity to do other things, for example operate a rotary table to divide a circle into a predetermined no of parts for gear cutting?



I don't know how adaptable picclock's interesting interesting project is to the jobs you've queried  maybe he'll comment on that in due course. You might like to know, though, that there's that there's a mature and reasonably cheap electronic controller project for dividing heads/rotary tables on the CNCZone site. It's designed by 'Kwackers' and fully described here:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/open_source_controller_boards/47007-rotary_table_indexer.html

Joe


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## chalky (Jan 19, 2011)

joegib, many many thanks for the lead to cnc forum you posted. I have spent hours allready reading the thread. What a contributor "Kwackers" is !!!

chalky.


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## picclock (Jan 19, 2011)

@ chalky

I'm afraid the pic on this project is pretty well tapped out, multitasking caliper reading, button presses, motor pulses, display updates, calculating acceleration/deceleration etc. 

I would suggest that if you want a rotary table divider (don't we all ) then kwackers one or a kit that Bogs tested (can't remember name) would be a good way to go.

When I started it was just going to be a simple pulse generator for a stepper motor but it sort of mushroomed as I added more and more features. 

If I'd had an idea of where I'd end up I'd have included the programming and motor drive for the crosslide ;D

It is turning out to be very useful and a great timesaver when turning large diameter parts at the slow fpm they need.

For me, when I get time, I will make a multiple remote DRO readout for my mill cos I'm to cheap to buy one .. . (and the cost of the batteries  : )

Sorry about time to reply but I haven't been able to log on to HMEM for some days.

Best Regards

picclock


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## chalky (Jan 20, 2011)

Mr Picclock sir.
Far from being delayed your speed of very helpfull reply is much appreciated.
The list of hoped for applications was realy only a list of the activities that I find tedious or difficult in my old age.

Many thanks for your input to a truly instructive and enjoyable thread.

chalky,


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## picclock (Jan 20, 2011)

@ chalky
If I remember correctly kwackers project uses a pc, whereas the one Bogs tested was a self contained stand alone unit.

(Edit : clearly remembered incorrectly - kwackers unit is stand alone)

best regards

picclock


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## joegib (Jan 21, 2011)

No, the Kwackers project is for a standalone, boxed controller independent of a PC just like the Division Master. 

Here's a link to a build described over on the Madmodders site by 'craynerd':

http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=2242.0

Here's a U-Tube video outlining a build by M. Parker-Lisberg:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIAeic1DEoc[/ame]

Joe


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## picclock (Jan 21, 2011)

@ Joe - That's a great video of kwackers project :bow:. I must have it mixed up with another rotary table project. 

I have the 6" rotary table shown in the video, but don't use it enough (yet) to justify a controller like that. I avoid using mine if possible because of the difficulty of accurately aligning it to the spindle, and then accurately clamping the work to it. It makes me seriously envy those guys who go CNC. 

Thanks for correcting my mis-information.

Best Regards

picclock


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## joegib (Jan 22, 2011)

No probs. Anyway, sorry for taking your thread off at a tangent.

Joe


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## cncfrenchteam (Apr 28, 2014)

Hello,

While I was trying to get some information on how to manage to control correctly the same stepper motor with a SLA7051M driver and the same control board than yours, Google led me right here ...

You really did a great job and your control board seems to be modified (removed components and shunt). 

With the original control board, I'm only able to make the motor move by steps, more or less quickly depending on the clock frequency but it's impossible to make it move smoothly so could you please explain us what modifications were made to the control board and how you used it with the stepper motor ?

Thanks in advance for your time and your help !


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## dsquire (May 8, 2014)

cncfrenchman

please check your PM's

Cheers 

Don


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## Wizard69 (May 13, 2014)

picclock said:


> @ Joe - That's a great video of kwackers project :bow:. I must have it mixed up with another rotary table project.
> 
> I have the 6" rotary table shown in the video, but don't use it enough (yet) to justify a controller like that. I avoid using mine if possible because of the difficulty of accurately aligning it to the spindle, and then accurately clamping the work to it. It makes me seriously envy those guys who go CNC.
> 
> ...




You do realize you are probably half way there for a CNC project.    There is a pretty good CNC software package for the Arduino for example that isn't much more complicated than what you have done here.  


Sent from my iPad using Model Engines


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## Wizard69 (May 13, 2014)

By the way the browser I'm using says your site isn't available.   Could be me, its late and I can't really look into it.   


Sent from my iPad using Model Engines


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