Finished my Taig 4th Axis

[budman68]

Finished my 4th (A) axis today and thought I'd share a few pics.

It's a Sherline rotary table which is easily the best little table out there that I have found for the money and that's probably why most major benchtop CNC companies use them.

The base has a step block on the bottom that is parallel to the table to ease in mounting and locating the assembly. 

The electronics come from Probotix and so far the stuff seems decent but time will tell. No squealing or grinding or anything like that. Just a nice quiet drive.

Now I just have to learn how to use the damn thing  











Dave

[Hood]

Looks great Dave
What dia is the 4th axis?
Hood

[Overloaded]

I like the looks of it too Dave, good job !
Have you determined the amount of backlash ?
Thanks,
RC

[budman68]

Hood, it's a 4" table and I have it just about 5/8" above the table surface so that gives me about  2.625" swing on it. I don't imagine I'll be doing anything larger than that on it but we all know how that goes..... 

RC, I have not measured it yet, but it looks to be way less than a 1/4 degree. Probably around a tenth if I trusted my eyes like I should.. 

That will definitely be measured though as I'll be using it for small engravings which would stick out like a sore thumb if I didn't compensate for that.

Dave

[Hood]

Ah ok, bit small for me looking at then, will just have to stick to my original plan of adapting the Bristol Erickson Indexer I have.
Will be good to see your first jobs on it

Hood

[budman68]

lol! Oh yeah, too small indeed, I could probably fit all my tools including my 9" south bend on just one of your machines..... 

Dave

[Hood]

ha ha not quite.
Hood

[RICH]

Looks good Dave,
If you remember, there is a number of good posts relative to setting up a fourth axis and also a
free program for putting text on a cylnder in here. Additionaly New Fangled Solutions has one for gutting gears
and splines. Learn all this well, find the bugs, so you can shorten our learning time.
RICH 

Oh, BTW, what kind of chuck are you going to use?

[budman68]

Thanks, Rich and yes, that program was "wrapper" that I pointed to a fellow member here at one time. I'll have to wite a few test programs to see ho it goes and report back.

As fr the chuck, it's probably going to be an independant 4 jaw Taig chuck from cartertools.com.

Dave

[Chaoticone]

Looks great Dave. I hope to build a 4th axis for my mill one day. It will be interesting to see what you make with it. It looks like a work of Art it's self.

Great Job!

Brett