lathe turret encoder help

[iamspuddy]

i have a barruffaldi toe80 and im fitting it to a cyclone running on centroid acorn .
it had no original motor or original encoder.
ive fitted a stepper motor but will change if not suitable .

i need help looking for a gray code encoder suitable for an 8 station turret that i can make something to fit it to the shaft to show actual position.

im open to a better way to get this to work on the lathe

any help appreciated

[m_c]

A stepper motor won't work on a TOE turret, as they need quite a bit of power to lock the turret.

Are you sure it's a TOE80?

[iamspuddy]

sorry i forgot to say i initially had it working with mach3 before i changed to acorn . the nema 34 reverses and pops out the locking pawl no problem . the macro counted steps between tools position then reversed a set amount after the locking pin was fired to pop out the pawl to lock in place . it counted by a proximity switch picking up 8 capscrew heads on a disc coupled to the shaft . i didnt know how to get it to work with centroid so i took it off and fitted a dixon style toolpost.

[m_c]

That doesn't sound like a TOE turret, as the TOE is more complex than a locking pawl.
Denford did fit a more basic ratchet type turret, which I think was their own design.

I'm not aware of any cheap grayscale encoders.
You could use an absolute rotary encoder (about £40 on Ali from a quick search), combined with a microcontroller capable of reading whatever output the encoder uses, that converts the absolute position into a more basic output, but that would involve some coding and circuit design.

You could stack 3 optical slot sensors that read suitable slotted discs to generate gray scale (or whatever combination of bits you'd like for each position).

However the simplest method would likely be a single home sensor, and run a turret homing macro when you power the lathe on.

[iamspuddy]

Thanks
Definitely a toe80 I may have used the wrong terminology to describe the action