[Video] Quickie Video: Emco CNC 5 turret controlled by Centroid Acorn

[martyscncgarage]

Thanks to Ken Lynn for loaning me the turret for testing. Jasen and Dieter from the Emco_CNC_Users Groups.IO group for their input, and to Mario at Centroid for working on and creating the PLC and M18 Macro.
Centroid is finalizing things to make it available for use. This should work for any DC motor uni-directional turret provided you can put a sensor on turret tool position 1.

Also of note, Mario made the software remember the tool position even after the control has been powered down.
M18 macro can be run in the cnct.hom program to make sure the turret is at tool position one during homing, or to reinitialize the turret when CNC12 is running. This is an OPEN LOOP system, that is, there is no feedback to the control to actually let it know that the tool is in position. This is the way the original Emco CNC 5 turret was designed. It uses TIME it takes between tool changes. This should be OK for these machines.

Centroid is also working with a 2 sensor version, one sensor for home, one sensor to count.
A gray logic version that uses 4 sensors and a truth table to tell the control which tool is in position was recently released.

The point being, is Acorn has been out for 14 months, it has undergone 3 hardware revisions and software is being continually improved. This and the fact that the hardware and software come from the Team at Centroid is exactly why I stand behind and support them.