Arduino Controlled Rotary Table

I'm this film I give a general overview of the Arduino controlled Rotary Table I built a few years ago, to automate indexing tasks.
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[@TheCiano69]

Great example of applying an electronics solution to the home workshop. I have only dabbled in basic soldering of boards e.g. a part built oscilloscope & DIY miiliohm meter. This looks a foolproof solution to potential errors when using dividing head plates etc.

[@carlwilson1772]

Hi Rob. It is a good example of that. It was much more simple to make than you might imagine. Simply a case of plugging together a number of small modules and then loading the Arduino with Gary Liming's source code, which you can get for nothing. It took longer to make the stepper motor mounting. If I can do it, anyone can. Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@jonsworkshop]

Hi Carl, I could clearly have done with that little modification over the last couple of weeks lol. Very neat job you made of it. Safe travels. Cheers, Jon

[@carlwilson1772]

Thank you Jon. It works well. I haven't used it in a long time but it is there if needed. It is quite an easy thing to do as well. I would definitely recommend it to others. Thanks for your interest and support, it is much appreciated.

[@HaxbyShed]

Very useful thanks Carl. Something I can grasp but never done. Cheers

[@carlwilson1772]

No problem, I am pleased you enjoyed it.

[@TheKnacklersWorkshop]

Hello Carl, Good video and as always well explained... I hope your trip goes well... Take care. Paul,,

[@carlwilson1772]

Thank you Paul. I think I am going to do a longer video showing in more depth how it is built, hopefully to assist others.

[@montana2strokeracer]

This is very interesting for sure; bet I could use this technology somewhere. Nice job, Thanks Carl.

[@carlwilson1772]

Thank you my friend, I hope to do a more in depth video on the unit. Thanks so much for your support.

[@retromechanicalengineer]

I like it, I remember when you built this. Does this mean that the rocket engine is now the motive power for the collective pile of abandoned projects? Nearly at 100 subs. Well done. Dean.

[@carlwilson1772]

Well, I am not calling it abandoned as such. The government decided to ban sales of nitrous oxide which meant I have had to have a big rethink. It is still on the back burner. If you will pardon the pun. 100 subs soon hopefully. Thanks for your support.

[@heinvosloo45]

Thanks, great to see. Will definitely try to do the same!

[@OzBSABantams]

Great video Carl, I thoroughly enjoyed that. I've seen grown men cry taking the last cut on a gear and realising they've missed a hole somewhere on an indexing plate as the cutter doesn't go down the middle of the material left. I am definitely going to look further into this as I do a lot of spline refurbishment work on my shaper for kickstart and gear change splines on veteran motorbikes. Is the continuous rotate function controlable for speed? Great job mate..................safe travels.......

[@carlwilson1772]

Hello Tony. Thank you very much for watching and commenting. I am glad you found it useful. I am one of those who has cried due to ballsing up with the dividing plates, hence this solution. If you decide to make one of these I would be happy to help out. I wrote this unit up as an article for Model Engineers Workshop magazine in the UK. I can't remember which issue it was, but I gave detailed instructions. As I say it is about 8 years back now. MEW is available in Australia I think, and they have a website. Yes, the continuous rotate function is speed controllable. Thanks again for your support. Edit - it was in MEW249.

[@carlwilson1772]

Hello all. I managed to get one last film in before I had to travel to work. I hope you all enjoy it. Thank you to all the new subscribers that have come along and thank you to everyone for watching. I really appreciate your support. Ps I forgot to show in the film that the table control software also has a continuous rotate function. It allows the user to run the table clockwise or counter at a selectable speed.

[@Festivejelly]

This is exactly what I need for my mill. Its such a great idea! I think I need to get better at maths before i try and use this though :)

[@NellsMechanicalManCave]

Hi Carl. That is a very interesting project! I'm not that great with electronics but I think it's something I should get into. I can see many possibilities using micro controllers. Perhaps I might get a starter kit for Christmas!!

[@carlwilson1772]

Hello my friend, yes, a starter kit is a great idea. I bought one of my mates one and he is doing really well now. I just scratched the surface of how this unit works really, I plan to do a more in depth video. I hope you enjoy my other films. All the best.

[@electromark1]

Is the Arduino code on your website? I can’t seem to find it 😮

[@carlwilson1772]

Hello, the code I used is on the website of Gary Liming. I hope this helps.

[@cainbeeping8480]

Thanks for sharing brother.

[@electromark1]

Thanks for sharing this it will come in very handy. It would be great with a keypad, anyone done this? 🙏

[@carlwilson1772]

I think it has been done. I prefer the minimal amount of buttons.

[@ashutoshambike4638]

Hi Carl, Thank you for the informative video. I have a situation where drill sequence is pre defined. For example, there are 20 holes to be drilled. But the sequence is like drill number 5, 19, 8, 14, 20, 6, 1....etc. Is there a way to add this sequence to the program? Thanks in advance for your help.

[@carlwilson1772]

Hi Ashutosh, great to see you here! I have thought about your problem. You could program an Arduino to drill holes in sequence, but the easiest way, in my opinion, and using the Arduino rotary table as is, would be as follows. You can input the movement as an angle. So for your 20 hole example, 360/20 gives 18 degrees per hole step. So if you start at hole 5, assuming hole 1 is zero datum, your first angle will be 90 deg. Moving to hole 19 is 14 hole steps, so next angle would be 252 deg. Then to get from 19 to 8, you need to keep moving in the same direction to avoid backlash. So that would be 9 increments of 18 degrees so next angle input would be 162 degrees. And so on. You are taking each hole position as a new datum each time and stepping the required multiple of hole degree increments to get to the next hole, always rotating in the same direction. I hope this helps. I hope also that you've enjoyed my other films, please give me a like and consider subscribing if you have. Thanks for your interest and support, it means a lot to me!

[@ashutoshambike4638]

@@carlwilson1772 thank you for your valuable response. I liked the solution - considering each hole as datum and adding next value in degrees. One clarification needed. I have number of holes in few hundreds. Adding degree each time is still a challange. I have the sequence of holes ready. Adding it in a program and just selecting next button may be the best solution. Does Arduion has such feature? Thank you for you time. I have already subscribed you Chanel for the upcoming content 🙂

[@carlwilson1772]

@@ashutoshambike4638 Hello Ashutosh, that is an intriguing problem. You could certainly program an Arduino to control a stepper motor and give a specific sequence of steps. Perhaps a way forward would be to download Gary Liming's code for the step indexing system, as I did, then modify it as required. If you don't have any experience with microcontroller systems like Arduino, then the Arduino website is a good place to start. Gain a grounding in the system, see what it can do and go from there, up. The only limit is your ability to persevere and learn new skills. Good luck!

[@Festivejelly]

Could this be used to basically cut a circle? So for example tell the rotary table to rotate 360 degrees at a certain rate.

[@carlwilson1772]

Yes it could. I have never tested the unit rotating against the force of a cut, but I think it would work. Stepper motors lose steps when overtorqued, but that would not matter for an application like cutting a circle. You could do it with a normal rotary table too of course.

[@VibrantSound528]

Hello Carl, how did you programmed the arduino to make any divisitions? I´m a student and I try make a rotary table but i have been unable to make it work, im using a LPD3806 encoder.

[@carlwilson1772]

Hi Alejandro. The program works by calculating the amount of steps required to turn through a certain angle. The motor does 200 steps per rev. The table gears this down 90:1. So that's 18000 steps for one rev of the table. Meaning 50 steps per degree. So the program takes the number of divisions and works out how many steps to run. The program was devised by Gary Liming and you can learn more about it if you Google him. Very good luck with your studies and project.

[@VibrantSound528]

@@carlwilson1772 Thank you so much Carl!!! I really appreciate it

[@willcampbell1639]

Can you send me a copy of your program for the indexer

[@carlwilson1772]

Hi, thanks for your comments and interest! You can find a link to the software download at Gary Limings site here:- www.liming.org/millindex/

[@schoonymopar]

I would like to build one of these could you send me your email