Member postings for Centurian

Hi Richard, I seem to have started at the other end so to speak. I bought the cylinder casting and have finished machining it. Other bits and pieces including all the gears and shafts I have made from scratch. I am currently fabricating the spring boxes and the next task is the horn plates. I am going for a copper boiler. The boiler rules in Australia are very strict and in order to build a steel boiler one has to be a coded welder. I am allowed to build a copper one under supervision. Unfortunately the materials have to come from the UK so there is a delay there, but still plenty to do. Have you built your wheels from heavy guage steel pipe as per the construction notes, or have you used a different method? I'm considering getting some flat bar rolled up and use laser cut annuluses for the internal rings. Australia has been metric for nearly 50 years so imperial sized pipe etc is not possible to get.

Iv'e recently started a 2" Durham & North Yorkshire traction engine using John Hainings drawings and construction notes. I am having a problem understanding the drawing of the Slide valve. If anyone has a photo of a completed one I would really appreciate seeing it. I am intending machining it from the solid not a casting.

I have been retired for 8 years now and if it wasn't for things like this I'd probably be in the ground by now. Its the reason for getting up in the morning. I have always found it very hard to proofread my own work as well. I'm not into programming despite spending many years in the computer service industry, but I'm learning.

First my thanks to Neil for righting my wrong photos. Second to Silly Old Duffer, the mod to the sketch,i.e. changing the delay from 100 to 10000 worked a treat. Just to be sure I changed it back again and the noise re appeared, so it is now running at 10000, I suppose I should try various values, maybe later. Once again thanks.

Thanks for the replies. Firstly to Muzzer, no I am using Windows 7.

To Dave, I first tested the motors(NEMA 17) on a bench power supply before ordering the "working" supplies, and they drew less than 1.5 amps. I am therefor using the same 12V 5A supplies in both boxes. I have set the driver boards to 2A. One thing I should have mentioned that I think is very significant, is that the knock seems to occur on each rev. I.E. every 200 steps. I will try the software patches tomorrow, for it is now past my bedtime ( in Western Australia) One other thing I might try is to substitute the bench PS for the inbuilt one, just to eliminate that possibility. I will let you know how it goes.

Edited By Centurian on 24/08/2017 15:46:07

Seems Iv'e been caught by the rotated picture gremlin. I tried to rotate it with my viewer software but it steadfastly remains upside down, so that's how it will stay, got better things to do.

Here are the photos.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 24/08/2017 18:45:34

Hi, Silly old Duffer, I have built both versions of the stepper rotary table box and they work wonderfully with one small exception. The keypad version causes a clunking sound in the stepper motor when running continuously and more pronounced when running an angle, say, 90 deg. The only change Iv'e made to your sketch is to change microsteps from 8 to 1. Iv'e made the corresponding change on the stepper driver board. Iv'e done this for both boxes. Needless to say when the same motor, used on the same rotary table, is run on the original box using Step indexer v2.3 there is no noise. Any suggestions? When I figure out how, I'll include pictures of both boxes.

Thanks I followed your advice and download the "test" sketch and using the numbers obtained modyfied the 2.3 sketch. All now works according to Hoyle. Many thanks for your response. I thought I'd checked all the relevent threads, but you know what they say about thought.

I've built a driver for my turntable exactly as specified in the article and cross checked with Gary Limings articles. My problem is that when I power it on it works as advertised to the point where it displays the correct startup screen I.E

Select Mode, Mode = Step. If I press Select nothing happens. Pressing Left scrolls through the Modes. Pressing Up also scrolls through the modes and Down Scrolls through the modes in the reverse direction. Pressing the "Right" button does nothing. Pressing reset does a reset and also switches off the run light on the stepper driver module. At all times whilst power is applied the actual stepper motor is locked. I have tried another display module and also a different processor module. ( an Arduino Mega) I have also tried it with no stepper driver connected. all I get is the above. Does any one have a clue what I'm doing wrong? I have been very careful in my wiring and anyway I have tried it with just the Arduino Uno and display shield.