Division Master (Stepper Motor Dividing)

[Noel RieussetParticipant @noelrieusset48142]

Has anybody purchased or used a Division Master unit.

Has anybody built one from the kit.

I have a Vertex 6" dividing head I am thinking of adding one to,

I would like to hear from anybody with indexing experience using one.

Any information would be appreciated.

Thank you

[Noel RieussetParticipant @noelrieusset48142]

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I haven't built the Divisionmaster but I have built this one:

There are some photos in my album.

I can't speak for the DM but the Ward one works well and was easy to build.

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

I built a Divisionmaster several years ago before the Ward indexer was available. The Divisionmaster is good but having built several of the Ward indexers, at significantly lower cost, I would go that route every time, both perform the function equally well.

[Noel RieussetParticipant @noelrieusset48142]

Thank you John and Graeme.

Very interesting.

John, I am very interested in your suggestion.

Cheers and thanks for your help

[HowiParticipant @howi]

Built the ward one too! Very good, works well, easy to build and cheaper than division master. There should be some pictures in my album.

[Mike CrossfieldParticipant @mikecrossfield92481]

+1 for the Ward design. A very well thought through design which is inexpensive to build and easy to use.

Mike

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I bought one of Tony Jeffree's originals

The price is now dramatically undercut, but I have no regrets.

… A superb piece of kit.

MichaelG.

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

Reading this thread promopted me to have another look to see if the source code was available for Steve Ward's design. I did not find it but noticed that he has a new version of the code that now runs on a PIC18F4520 (Rather than the original PIC16F877.) I think it will be compatable with the original schematic so I will try the new code when I get time. The original PIC16F877 code was worked without any problems.

Les.

Edited By Les Jones 1 on 19/11/2017 13:02:08

Edited By Les Jones 1 on 19/11/2017 13:02:41

[Noel RieussetParticipant @noelrieusset48142]

Hello Les,

Thank you for that information.

It would be great if you could do that for me, I am thinking the Ward indexer is the way to go.

Cheers

Noel

[Andrew TinsleyParticipant @andrewtinsley63637]

Looking at the ward site, there seems to be the electronic (cheap even if you buy the ready built version), but little mention of the stepper motor or the attachment of said stepper to the rotary table. Or have I missed something as usual?

Andrew.

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

You are correct in stating that the Ward site only covers the electronics side of the project.

For the mechanical side, it's only really a couple of simple items to make plus some form of coupling.

I made all of the items myself from my own drawings, and I would consider myself very much in the beginner category of engineering.

Edited By Zebethyal on 20/11/2017 15:21:30

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Have a look at this ***THREAD*** which is about Carl Wilson's article in MEW 249 describing an Arduino based rotary table stepper controller. There is a write up on my web-site that covers building it with drawings for the hardware ***Journeymans Workshop***

John

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

The Ward Controller PCB can actually be simplified, back to being more like his original design, the current version has many extra bells and whistles that not everyone actually requires.

This is a schematic of a bare bones version, the keypad part could easily be replaced with a 4×4 matrix one for £0.99 from ebay.

The only real requirements for building it are a PIC chip (free via the sample service from Microchip), A clone PicKit programmer (about £7.00) and a ZIF adapter (under £2.00) both reusable for future projects, in total less than the price of a genuine Arduino. The LCD you would need to buy for any version of the controller (£3.00) and a small perfboard costs pennies.

You would still require the following items for either version: a stepper driver – I used a PMinMO one that I built for about £5.00, a PSU (old laptop one – free) voltage regulator to supply 5V (Pulse Width Buck Converter – about £1.00) and a stepper motor that will work within the range of the stepper driver (mine cost £17.00).

[Paul White 3Participant @paulwhite3]

I would like to say that the 2 postings you have made on this subject are, clear information and most helpful to anybody considering building this item.

Can you identify what the bells and whistles are to help a decision on their desirability.

Many thanks.

Paul

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

Optional features include:

• second stepper driver option
• key beep feedback option
• limit switch option
• Control option – link multiple units for automatic gear cutting

The full list of what it can do is shown at World of Ward under description and features.

I chose to implement a bare bones version, as I currently have no need for the additional functionality and wanted it to be as simple as possible to implement on perfboard.

I can always build the full version later and re-use the parts for minimal additional cost – if I do decide to upgrade, I will probably buy the bare PCB from Steve Ward at £6.00 it is still pretty cheap.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Another possibility (if I may bang my own drum) is my keypad operated divider. It's based on an Arduino and inspired by a comment made by John Stevenson. He disliked the nested menus of Carl's article and asked if the same could be done with a keypad? The answer is yes, and of course a numeric keypad also allows more bells and whistles.

In short, this one has the same functions as Gary Liming's original, plus:

• The ability to type in wanted angles and numbers of steps directly as numbers. (Bump, Angle, DivSteps, Ratio & Continuous)
• Eliminates the nested menu needed by the DF-Robot board's push-buttons and the DF-Robot board.
• A REWIND function allows you to reverse the last 10 operations. (Useful for undoing mistakes.)
• A PAUSE function. (Useful if you have to answer the phone in the middle of an operation.)
• A RATIO function allows the base ratio to be changed from the keypad. (Useful if the divider is used directly (1:1) or on more than one table, e.g if you own both 60:1 and 90:1 tables.)
• An improved status display
• The ability to receive commands from a USB connected computer. Not sure this is useful. Although the interface works, it's not compatible with anything and I haven't written a user friendly interface for it.

The software and a descriptive PDF may be found here.

Also of interest may be the simplified motor-mount I made. The original design calls for a rather nicely made aluminium sleeve. As I didn't have the materials I made this pillar bodge instead. It's considerably simpler and works well. If you're nervous about trapping your fingers in the works, wrap electrical tape round the pillars. The knurling is just fancy waistcoats!

Dave

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 21/11/2017 13:16:19:

Also of interest may be the simplified motor-mount I made. The original design calls for a rather nicely made aluminium sleeve. As I didn't have the materials I made this pillar bodge instead.

Dave

.

Generations of clockmakers should be proud of you, Dave

MichaelG.

[Alan Waddington 2Participant @alanwaddington2]

Very interesting thread this, thank you to all the contributors…….i think i will have a go at converting my dividing head at some point, as constantly twiddling it and walking back to the end of the table to take a cut when making gears is tedious and tiring to say the least…….

[Carl Wilson 4Participant @carlwilson4]

As is well known to members of my family I am a complete numpty. Therefore I needed to automate indexing which resulted in my article.

Dave that motor mount is a thing of beauty. I wish I’d thought of that.

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

I programmed a PIC18F4520 with the latest version of code and plugged in into my existing controller in place of the PIC16F877. It worked straight away. It seems to behave exactly the same as the PIC16F877 version. So I suggest choosing between the two types of PIC based on the price you can buy them for at the time,

Les.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Carl Wilson 4 on 21/11/2017 14:58:05:
As is well known to members of my family I am a complete numpty. Therefore I needed to automate indexing which resulted in my article.

…

Me too Carl. I am almost incapable of keeping count whilst cranking a rotary table with division plates. I probably own England's largest collection of botched gears – all my own work.

One other feature of my program I forgot to mention: backlash correction. You can pre-set the number of steps needed to take up backlash and they're added automatically whenever the table direction is reversed. Much safer to keep going the same way though!

Dave

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

The botched gears from my Jovilabe gave me a head start in lost wax casting

[john fletcher 1Participant @johnfletcher1]

I have started making an Arduino controller indexer as shown in the article in MEW issue 249. I have also been reading the details posted on this site, all very interesting. When I looked at the motor Nema 23 motor details from Zapp Automation it shows a motor with 8 wires, but on page 69 of issue 249 it shows a captive plug with 5 terminals and presumably a 4 wire motor. Will some one put me on the straight and narrow. Are there other detail I should be aware of ? John

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by john fletcher 1 on 24/12/2017 17:44:45:

…

When I looked at the motor Nema 23 motor details from Zapp Automation it shows a motor with 8 wires, but on page 69 of issue 249 it shows a captive plug with 5 terminals and presumably a 4 wire motor. Will some one put me on the straight and narrow. …

Hi John,

These motors come in 4-wire, 6-wire and 8-wire versions. They will all work with 4-wires.

The diagram shows the possibilities, and their essential similarity. The 6-wire motor is the same as a 4 wire motor except the coils have a centre tap. You just ignore the centre tap.

Eight wire motors go a step beyond the 6-wire centre tap type by winding 4 separate coils on the motor. Bit more complicated. There are two ways to wire these for 4 wire operation as shown above, serial and parallel.

Which to use depends on the specification of the particular motor and your power supply, but usually wire them in serial as shown bottom left.

Most web sellers put specifications of their stepper motors on line so you know the wire colours and voltages.

Dave

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