Indexer help please

[toddmaci]

Some of the following questions may seem obvious so please forgive my ignorance.

I recently purchased a used prt dual z alpha shopbot. This came with a new indexer. I am attempting to set it up and have some questions.
1. Is there any documentation on how to wire this in the control box?( I did not see any in the manual) Does shopbot sell a wiring kit for the driver or do I need to cut wire and crimp on the ends for the 110 connections? Looks simple enough.
1a. Where do I hook up the ribbon cable? to driver 5 slot? It seems to be the only one open?
2. I am also looking for insight into how to mount this in the X axis. My machine has the aluminum rails however the holes in the indexer aluminum tracks do not line up with the channels in the x axis tracks.
3. Should I fabricate some intermediate piece to go between the x axis aluminum track and the indexer track?
4. What have other folks done? Pictures would be great.
5. In general, how far apart should I mount the alum indexer track? I was thinking about 2 ft apart. This would give me a max length of about 52” and a min. of about 20”.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Todd

[myxpykalix]

Todd,
If they will help any here are some pics of my setup. On the inside of the box, the wire with the little tag on it is the wire for the indexer.


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[toddmaci]

Jack,
Thanks, What driver does your indexer ribbon cable go into? What is the distance between the Aluminum tracks? What is you max. length.Do I just need to run the green wire to the grounding block and the black and white wires to the "capacitor"? Am I good after that? Do you wire yours yourself or did it come from the factory?

[myxpykalix]

Sorry for the delay to respond, as you might tell i ran out to take pics in my "jammies" and post them then went to bed. Up for a bit now.

Shopbot wired my unit up when I bought it all at the same time so I can't help you there. Call Scott at Shopbot he's the guy that always helps me with my indexer problems (most of the time) and he could get you set up right.

I can do 8' long columns. The fluted column I think is 7' tall and the other pole i think is 6'.
Before you get your indexer physically all set up I suggest you go back to this thread and read it all and do some of the things i had to do to get it dead on even, plumb, level or you will be making tapers instead of columns.
http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/mes...tml?1215831105
and this post
http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/mes...tml?1215542249
And after all that work the most important thing i learned was when Bill Young tells you something....he's always right! I learned that the hard way.
He's our Shopbot Yoda...

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[myxpykalix]

A tip: depending on where you mount your aluminum T track it is imperitive that you get them lined up correctly.
Take a sharpie and chuck it up. Decide where you are going to mount the track and run a line down in the X axis and set your track on the line to make sure you are paralell to your router.

In my case i couldn't do that because it was too deep so i chucked up a 1/4" rod as my "probe" and lined it up by moving the carriage in the X
and tapping the track till it touched then clamping and drilling holes to mount.
Here are some pics of another botters way he made a T track that i'm sure was cheaper than buying a an 8' long aluminum piece of T track.
I kept them because i am going to copy his idea eventually. Sorry i can't tell you who it is.

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[toddmaci]

Jack,
Thanks for the pictures. I talked to Ryan at Shopbot and he helped me get going. The ribbon cable goes to driver slot 5. The driver itself gets wired just like the other drivers,Green to ground,black to positive,white to negative. Now that I have it spinning I am working on getting it mounted.

Thanks,

Todd

[myxpykalix]

again I stress going to read those two cited posts if you want to save yourself a lot of frustration, and let me know if i can help...