cnc rotary table with stepper motor free sample

Sherline’s CNC driver box comes equipped with an A-axis output cable ready to drive a 4th rotary axis. This rotary table is all you need to turn your Sherline CNC mill into a 4-axis machine. Just plug the A-axis cable from the external driver box or the built-in driver box in your Sherline computer into the matching plug on the stepper motor. The EMC2 software is already set up to handle G-code for the A-axis, and numbers entered after the letter “A” in your code are interpreted in degrees.

The same end result can be obtained by ordering a CNC ready rotary table and a stepper motor and attaching the motor, but this single part number does the same thing, making it easier to order and saving you the trouble of installing the motor on the rotary table.

Control digital devices and make machinery more precise with a stepper motor from Alibaba.com"s wholesale equipment store. Our catalogue is the place to come when you need a replacement stepper motor rotary table or any other motor related products. You"ll find a huge array of wholesale motors, including step motors with high torque ratings that can offer incredibly precise control. Whether you"re constructing an astronomical telescope or a digital network for broadcasting, these motors will do the job.

Stepper motors are used in situations where devices need to be calibrated to extremely high levels of precision. They aren"t always the most powerful motors, but they do have very high torque levels, and this allows them to control devices in ways that other motors cannot. And they also tend to work well with digital devices due to their "step" mechanism. For instance, you can find step motors in many hard drives, handling millions of operations every minute. They have also become a go-to motor style for robotics installations. So you might need one for an advanced production line. When you need a stepper motor rotary table, finding the right motor is easy. Just search Alibaba.com"s catalogue and you"ll easily find what"s required.

Our stepper motor collection covers every base. Browse motors for use with mini computers like the Raspberry Pi or models designed for use with Arduino components. Look for permanent magnet motors, variable reluctance steppers, or hybrid syncronous steppers, and models with micro step, half step, and full step modes. Our listings include everything you need to control the most complex systems. So find a stepper motor rotary table and order what you need today. Everything can be handled with a couple of clicks, putting specialist stepper motor components within easy reach.

I am wondering how it would work to mount a stepper motor or servo motor on the rotary table. What all would I need in order to make a laptop computer operate the rotary table?Sherline makes a very small rotary table that is just what I am looking for but it is tiny. I need something bigger and stronger. The sherline looks like you can program a certain number of divisions and then every time you hit the button it moves to the next location.

Well, depends on your skills. You need to be able to design and machine a simple mounting plate, connect up wires to printed circuit board screw terminals, run some software, etc. Your immediate application doesn"t require maximum performance. Steppers should be ok, and you won"t need more expensive motors, controllers, and lots of fine tuning. Just don"t try to push the speed limits unless you know what you are doing.

Step 1: measure the amount of force it takes to turn the wheel, so you know what size stepper you need. Put some load on the table, like a heavy vise and pull the edge of table with 50+lbs of force (1/4 horsepower, scale up as needed) to simulate machining forces (although in your immediate app, you probably won"t be machining and moving at the same time). Give yourself a safety factor. A double ended shaft is recommended, so you can mount a handwheel on back end for manual operation. For a small table like the sherline, most NEMA-23 motors should work. For a larger one, you may need higher torque NEMA-23, NEMA-34, or geared steppers.

Gearing adds backlash - not a big deal if you are moving in only one direction as a simple indexer but a problem if you are doing more sophisticated stuff. If you need a motor that draws more than about 3A, drivers get more expensive.

Step 2: physically mount motor to rotary table. On some tables, the shaft is supported on one end by a piece that bolts on. This provides convenient mounting. You may be able to machine a plate that has the original mounting holes, a bore for the bearing, and 4 holes for standoffs that match the stepper motor mounting holes. You will need a flex coupling. Bear in mind that the position of the shaft determines how well the gears mate and how much backlash there is. You may want slots for the mounting holes so you can slide the plate.

Step 3: stepper motor driver. These can be had easily on ebay and elsewhere. They usually have step and direction inputs. Should be able to handle your motor. There are some bare boards here if you can solder electronic circuits: http://www.pminmo.com/

Step 4: Power supply to match your motor driver. Most will let you use a voltage higher than the rated voltage of the motor. This gives much better performance. You can reduce the current rating of the power supply by roughly the ratio of the power supply voltage to the motor voltage. You may need up to twice as much because two windings may be energized at the same time. Power supplies can be had cheap on ebay. Wire to stepper motor driver board. Be careful NOT to ground the negative lead at the power supply (and don"t use a power supply that won"t let you float ground). Otherwise, the voltage drop accross the negative lead causes ground current loops which can be bad for your computer. Ground at the motor driver only.

Step 5: PC interface. If your laptop has a parallel port, all you need to do is connect ground, step, and direction. The latter two can be connected to D0 and D1 on the parallel port. You will configure the software to tell it what pins you used. Parallel ports are going the way of dodo birds. USB->Parallel adapters are not suitable. USB is a bit trickier, though there are some stepper controllers available: here is one: http://www.usbcnc.com/index_products.html. I have seen a cheaper one designed by someone here or on CNCzone that looked halfway decent but can"t find it at the moment. About EU$69, USB, PIC based, 3 axis, no source code, windoze software included. Looked adequate for what you are doing but not for my purposes:

EMC is free but requires you reboot the computer to run real time linux. TurboCNC is $60, requires you to reboot to dos. There is some more expensive stuff out there. If you have a USB or RS-232 controller that speaks g-code, then you can probably just open a terminal emulator to the controller and type g-codes. "G01 0.0", "G01 15.0", "G01 30.0". If you have any programming ability, you can just write a trivial program to do this. Bear in mind that Windoze, as well as normal non-real time linux, Mac OS X, and other desktop operating systems are lousy at real time applications. Thus, an external CNC controller can work better.

Leave yourself some room to expand. Put a motor on your X axis, for example, and now the computer can cut your gear with a little programming and you have a power feed.

One axis stage (also called a slide or translation stage) travels in a straight line along one plane or axis. The stage can be horizontal. It can be vertical which would be on a Z axis. It is also possible with some stages to invert them horizontally so that the payload is "below" the stage. A payload is mounted or placed on the carriage of the stage.

• A means to control the position of the carriage. This can be a crank and knob, a graduated knob, a micrometer head or a motor. On a Velmex Free Slide, position is controlled by the operator pushing the carriage into position.

Load maximum for the bottom or X slide must now be calculated including the weight of the Y slide and any components used to attach it to the X slide. The stage can be manually- or motor-driven.

An XY Table can also be comprised of 2 linear slides traveling in tandem on the X axis and 2 traveling in tandem on the Y axis. In this configuration the tandem slides affixed at the outside perimeter of the base plate and platform plate. Frequently this type of XY table will have an aperture in the center because the slides are attached at the perimeters of the base and platform plate.

Another form of elevating table uses a linear slide mounted on the Z axis to a base plate. The payload can be mounted directly to the carriage or it can be mounted on a L-shaped platform bracket which is in turn mounted to the carriage.

Load maximum for the bottom or X slide must now be calculated including the weight of the Z slide and any components used to attach it to the X slide. This is more than likely also going to be a cantilevered load. The stage can be manually- or motor-driven.

Load maximum for the base or X slide must now be calculated including the weight of the X slide and the weight of the Z slide and any components used to attach them to the other slides. The system can be manually- or motor-driven.

Rotary tables can be manually- or motor-driven. Large scale rotary tables are frequently found in CNC machining operations. They are also used in indexing or pan and tilt operations.

Motorized worm gear driven rotary tables provide high angular resolution (the worm gear ratio directly multiplies the motor output torque and motor angle resolution) and holding torque. PI offers precision motorized worm gear rotary tables with both stepper motors and closed-loop servo motors with encoder feedback. While open-loop stepper motors are often used for their lower cost and ease of control, closed loop servo motors with encoder feedback provide higher speed, higher accuracy, and repeatability. PI also provides closed-loop stepper motor rotary stages, combining the best of both worlds. PI stepper motor rotation stages are provided with stepper motor controllers featuring a micro stepping mode for higher performance. For single axis applications, a compact and very cost effective single axis stepper motor controller is available.

For the best performance and highest velocity, direct-drive rotary stages with torque motors are recommended (link to new Rotary Stage Page with Direct Drive Torque Motors).