On 2010-11-27, RogerN wrote:

"Ignoramus8184" wrote in message
...
I have a Haas 5C indexer, similar to eBay item 310175166880, except mine
is a stepper driven model. It has a chuck on its nose also.

The way it works is that you program it like a VCR, and upon pressing
a button, it advances one step of the program. You can, say, specify
that it needs to divide a circle in 23 divisions. There is a provision
of a remote button at the end of a two conductor cable, and it can be
wired to the CNC mill.

Which is what I did.

Now the mill can use the M64 and M65 G codes to tell the indexer to
advance. I wrote a G code subroutine advance_indexer that does its
namesake job using M64, M65 and waiting.

After this I added a GUI button "advance indexer".

I used an "audio extension cable" to provide a disconnect capability.

What is really amazing is how easy it was. I was tired, garage was
cold, I made several dumb mistakes (like forgetting to install a DC
SSR into the slot that I wanted to use), and yet the whole job took 2
hours from start to finish.

Thank you, EMC2. Also kudos to Jon for his easy to use PPMC system.

i

That sounds great! Not only would it be handy for gears and such but I
thought I would like one just to be able to machine 2 sides or 4 sides of a
workpiece. It would also be neat if you were making some kind of indexing
turret. Seems the possibilities are endless.

Yep.

Years ago I called Anilam about adding I/O to my mill so I could turn on
coolant, spindle, etc, plus maybe turn the machine off at the end of the
program. The board was going to cost somewhere in the $1000 neighborhood
IIRC. It would only cost me a few hundred to convert to EMC2 and have all
the I/O plus additional axis I could want.

Yes, it is not that EMC2 magically gives the machine better physical
performance than the original control, but what it gives us is
flexibility to do whatever we want at close to zero cost.


Got any plans for making things? I enjoyed the way you took the group
through the conversion process with you, all the info an pictures. I'd bet
there are many others that want to someday.


I need to make gears for one guy, for his machine. I will make a
couple for myself too and will sell them on ebay.

i