This weeks project - to automate my dividing head for my Mill (to make it easier to use). Now I can elect number of divs or degrees to increment and don't have to count holes in the dividing plate. Much less risk of buggering up the workpiece This way 

All parts are straight from EvilBay. It uses an Arduino nano as the controller which drives a 5amp stepper amplifier. There's a 16x2 screen and a rotary encoder (click wheel) that acts as a user interface. I've programmed it to have a bunch of different menus so that you can select from divisions or degrees and then index forwards or backwards as necessary.

Arduino Nano. This is the brains and literally only the size of a USB stick. That's the rotary encoder next to it

 

 

It has a basic display and menu system

 

 

The Nano drives this stepper amplifier, and this in turn drives the motor. It uses a stepper amplifier rather than a stepper driver board like a 4988 as the larger frame Nema 24 Stepper motors take more current to drive than say a Nema 17 liek you would find on a 3D printer. 

Just a few bits of code to tidy up and it's pretty much ready to mount up and install.

 

Update: now available on GitHub - https://github.com/DeeEmm/DIY-Dividing-Head