Program

This program (platform) can be downloaded by clicking here. The program also calculates the reduction needed to move the platvorm top at the right speed, given the number of revolutions of the stepper motor. These calculations are not meant for the roller-drive as treated in the detailed building plans for the platform I built for my 12 incher, but for a tangent-arm drive, which I used for driving the platform of my 20 incher. More information about this (tangent-arm) type of drive can be found in Chuck Shaw's article (see literature and links page for URL). So, if you make the roller drive, you don't need to enter any values for this purpose. The output figures for this function are also irrelevant of course. For the same reason the calculated radius of a third circle (of the drive-arm sector) is irrelevant for the building of a roller drive. In that case you may enter a 0 (zero) here and ignore this circle. In figure 8 the input variables are shown.