Indexing turntable

[F57887]

Hello all, first off I am very new here, and uneducated, so please bare with me. I need to build an indexing turntable. I have 16 stations on a 15" diameter table. Each station has a spindle that will hold an aluminum part. I have a fixed pnuematic dispenser that will dispense a measure amount of adhesive on the part. I would like the table to rotate so that the part would stop at the dispenser for 5 seconds. The dispenser is on the back side of the table, and I will have an operator on the front adding and removing parts as needed. In an ideal world, I would like to be able to alternate between using 16 and 8 stations, and I would also like for the dispenser to be keyed at the point that the part reaches the station. Also, total tableweight isn't more than 10 pounds with very little if any torque required.
I have just ventured into learning about CNC, but everything I find deals with multi axis machines. I did find a setup from Applied Motion, using their SI software, but I am looking at about $2200 to get started and I have to believe that I could do this myself for less. So, I am asking for some assistance in putting this together.
As I understand it, I need software, a controller, a driver and a stepper motor. I can download the SI software for free, and it is very user friendly, so I need to figure out if I can get it to work with a setup other than theirs. Or is there a simple to understand, and operate, software that I could use for the table. I visited the homeshopcnc.com site and looked at the Gecko G201 drive and a stepper motor. How would I figure out if that is compatible with the SI software? Can anyone point me to a website that has a single axis tutorial or such. Thanks in advance.

Andrew

[Al_The_Man]

It seems to me that you do not necessarily want a CNC system, This is a system you could easily integrate using a single axis Galil card and a Maple systems display for operator entry if needed.
There are Galil DMC-1000 or DMC-1500 stand-alone controller on ebay all the time for cheap, then if you have a servo that is close coupled, you can index it off the encoder for degree positioning.
I just finished a 36" table fitted to a CNC mill using this method, using the built in native language of the motion card.
The Galil has 16 I/O but is expandable. There are other stand alone controller out there that should do it.
It sound like you just need a standard multi-station indexing table.
Al.

[keithorr]

I built a 12 station indexing turntable using pneumatics and timing relays. An air cylinder would kick the table one position and retract in a ratcheting motion. A detent would keep the table in position. The timing of a part lift cylinder was done with time-on and time-off adjustable relays from Graingers. This was before I knew about plc's and motion control. Bunch of wires and a big J box to hold the solenoids and relays.