Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

An umbrella changer needs two sensors on the changer itself. One for tool position one, and one to count the tools. CNC12 knows where it's at. If the tool count isn't what it expected, then it faults. Of course you need clamp/unclamp, slide in/out and spindle orient.

Seems you could drive your changer similarly and use a stepper driver like I did in my turret, which basically drives the stepper motor like a reversible DC motor and use the above logic?

With your Geckodrive controller, can you make it move multiple tool positions in one command or does it move position stop, verify then move on?
i.e. the only commands it receives it to move 1 position forwards or 1 position back.

Fwd rev. Period. It can move a stepper traditionally, but it's one or the other

Ok a quick update as this social isolating has allowed me to get back into the shed.
Have worked out the logic to control carousel through the Ether1616.
Using a cheap PLC (Velocio) to interface to E1616 with 4 bit logic for positioning with two other bits to activate move & signal move complete.



Attached is the Mfunc6.mac file showing how it worked.
A little more work is required to tidy up the file & finesse the action but it should give you an idea on how it works.
Regards,
Michael

Nice!
Now list all the components of the build so the next guy can do it.

That's looking pretty good!

Could you also post the Velocio file, so I can see what the PLC flow looks like? I have the Velocio s/w installed on my laptop.

Thanks

What components did you use?

I used a generic leadshine style closed loop stepper for the carousel & a Velocio ACE PLC to generate the pulses for the stepper.
The PLC file is on page 2 of this thread & the M6 macro on page 3.
If you break down the steps required a toolchanger is not too difficult.
Regards,
Michael

How are you indexing your spindle? It is fast and smooth. I've been searching like crazy to find a good way to have the VFD index as it appears you have worked out.