Remote indexer on Dialog 4 working

I lashed up an air indexer to my Dialog 4 control this week. Simple job being done, could have been done other ways, I wanted to use this as a dry run to make sure I knew what to do for a more complex job later on. The indexer is an Erickson 400, it only needs a common 5 port double acting solenoid air valve to operate it, the same connection works for a Haas or other rotary axis with a separate control box. there's a M-code output built into the control, it's a momentary 24VDC 300ms signal activated by an M49 in a program. Not knowing what it's power capacity is, I wanted to have the lowest possible load on that circuit so I used an electronic relay to trigger the remote box.

I picked an Omron G3FD-X03SN-VD SS solid state relay and a base to fit the DIN rail in the cabinet. I ran the M49 wire to the input of the relay, and ran a ground to a machine ground terminal in the cabinet. The NO contacts connect to a length of cord I plan to wrap up and store in the cabinet when not in use.
Don Sentner found the circuit in the electrical prints, and installed the pin and a wire in the plug for me. I can't point out how to do that except the circuit was labeled M49 on the print, he had the correct terminal pin and the crimp tool and knew how to locate the circuit.

Here's the program I used. I think if I do this again I'll just loop within the main program, I wanted to try my hand at a local subroutine.

%
($%101/000120"MILL HEX INSERT W INDEXE)
N10 G0 X0 Y-1.5 Z1
N20 %*1
N25 L5 N20 N20
N30 G0 Y2 Z3
N40 M30


%101*1
N5 G0 X0 Y-1.5 Z1
N10 G0 Z0.83
N20 G1 Y1.5 F33.0 S+500
N30 Z0.79
N40 Y-1.5
N50 X0.005 Z0.781 S+600
N60 Y1.5 F25.0
N70 G0 Z1
N70 M49

?

In this case the rapid is slow enough and the indexer fast enough that no dwell is needed before resuming cutting. On other machines and indexers I've added an M4 dwell on the line after the M49 to allow the machine to wait for the index motion to finish before engaging the cut. There is no completed operation signal on the D4 control, at least not that I've found.

The control box shown is way more complicated than needed for this. Inside the starter enclosure is a relay, the solenoid valve, a 120VAC to 24 VDC transformer to run the valve and relay and the wiring needed to connect to the Erickson indexer. The blue pushbutton operates a switch to manually operate the indexer. This is all that's needed here. The black box is the interface for a Prototrak machine. It has a transformer, a relay and a digital timer to receive the go signal from the Prototrak and return a momentary completed operation signal to the Prototrak, none of which is needed for the Deckel so ignore it for this, I just found it easy to leave it all in the circuit for now.












The sound is terrible on this, it really wasn't chattering.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRdueWqXwjM" target="_blank">

Nicely done!

BTW, I use local subroutines all the time. I put any G41...G40 compensated contour segment that I want to cut more than once in its own local sub. I keep the feed and speed in the calling program. That way, I can cut the contour with whatever tool I want, with whatever speed and feed I want. I can rough with a big endmill and then chew out corners and otherwise finish as necessary with other tools. I can also get just the contour from CAM and plop it into D4 code. That's a good way to handle complicated contours that are difficult to finger-CAM. D4 just does not do well with code straight from CAM. I am sure the post could be improved, but it's a big job.

rklopp said:

I can also get just the contour from CAM and plop it into D4 code. That's a good way to handle complicated contours that are difficult to finger-CAM.

Click to expand...

How do you do that? Is there a way to upload a piece of code into the middle of a program, or do you download the file, insert the code and then upload the whole program?

It's the latter. I use Fusion 360 with a modified post. I modify the text file that the post spits out in BBEdit on my Mac and then upload the whole program in D4 Mode 14. BBEdit lets me renumber lines after moving lines around, so it's not a big deal. I use the Serial app to do the upload.