Nice! Are you going to reuse the servo motor?

Yes, the new 'Mega 4th Axis' has the Servo motor from the previous prototype. It is now installed and has begun its working life.  The last steps were to to drill the base, drill a couple of additional holes in the outrigger plate (the 'Mega' is longer), align the machine, do the final cuts on the tapers with the machine installed and under its own power, mount the D1-4 Chuck adapter and then cut and final grind to mount the 6" Bison chuck. I also now have a balanced 12" cast iron D1-4 mount face plate.  You can see that piece and also build details and install details in an upcoming video.

Here are a couple of selected final shots to finish the update to the thread. First is the in-place cut of the tapers:



Next is a shot of the ground cam-loc face of the completed D1-4 chuck adapter:



THe completed adapter is then installed on the re-cut spindle and then rough cut and ground to receive the chuck:



And lastly a glamor shot of the finished product . . .  which I will have to do over because it had not occurred to me to wait until the spindle was final cut:

The video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlQgMk6te_Y

Every time I go through this thread, I'm awed. I'm about to start making chips for my own 4th axis. So I visit this thread for inspiration!

Mike

Hi Steve,

This was an awesome thread from start to finish! Your work and perseverance is amazing!

Anyways just wanted to know if the latest version you need to swap belts? I noticed two difference size pulleys on the motor. 

I am also wondering what would be needed to complete the setup, motor, driver, relay etc with the production unit?

Just a tid bit here and a few answers.

The machine has two very different speed ranges. The belt swap is to move from 'back gear' which is now 12:1 ratio for 'direct drive' which can be a variety of ratios from about 2:1 to 4:1 for high speed turning. The spindle and all rotating parts are balanced to 4K so for example with a 6k motor and 2:1 'direct drive' (one belt from motor to spindle) you can run 3K spindle with collets or a small chuck. In 'back gear', the same motor would run the spindle at only 500RPM for use with a large (6" or 8") chuck or large (12") faceplate of the trunnion table to do low speed high torque operations.

I am now working on a BT30 high speed spindle and Automatic tool changer. The first prototype is good for maybe 7k to 10k. To go faster, in my opinion, a stronger spindle is called for and to that end I have made a prototype spindle completely from A6 tool steel, hardened, properly tempered and ground. I made it for the InTurn™  4th axis not because I intend to run the 4th axis at 15k, but because the 4th axis is capable of providing a brutal torture test in strength of the spindle.

The new spindle is ready to install in my own InTurn™. the final grind on the 5C internal and D1 external tapers are done with the spindle installed. The spindle from my machine will get a new improved D1-4Flange and be put in one of the two extra frames that have from making the last batch of machines, so I will have one additional InTurn™ available if anyone wants it.

Here is the new spindle:

all I can say is wow I have read the thread backward and forward. everything is unbelievably well documented  except the balancer it looks home built as well. I am very interested in the harmonic balancer  A spindle and some deep groove bearings have followed me hone. I have a large DC servo and made some sketches. I had not thought of the challenges of the software side of the equation. I have 2 horizontal manual mills so this will be ran stand alone as well as hooked to the bridgeport mill as a indexer and sub spindle.  I am planning to use the Audrino to control  it as a stand alone indexer.  http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/f39/electronic-dividing-head-using-arduino-17896/
the spindle is out of an emco myer  lathe,  it is a D1-4 and is the same spindle that is in My south bend 14 lathe so I already have chucks and faceplate ect. that fit. ( it may give me an excuse to buy that 16C collett chuck I have been looking at) as it will fit the lathe as well.

your efforts to impart this to the rest of us is above and beyond
thank You
archie =) =) =)

all I can say is wow I have read the thread backward and forward. everything is unbelievably well documented  except the balancer it looks home built as well. I am very interested in the harmonic balancer  A spindle and some deep groove bearings have followed me hone. I have a large DC servo and made some sketches. I had not thought of the challenges of the software side of the equation.

That spindle looks perfect for a 4th axis project!

I am unclear if you have asked a specific question and also unclear if the software you are referring to is for the 4th axis or the balancer, so I will address both. First the controller:

The InTurn™ 4th axis motor controller is a fairly complex device in its current form. There are approx 3,500 lines of C code running on an Atmel processor. The controller has been thru one very major upgrade wherein the signal generation was moved off the processor to a separate digital signal synthesizer with MHz capability. I am holding the signal speed to 500KHz for practical reasons. The controller is about to go thru another fairly major update. This next update will not require any new hardware.

1) 'Manual' mode is gone. The existing speed dial and switches have been re-purposed and now provide real time variable speed for both set speed and autospeed modes.

2) The modbus comm to MACH3 has been changed from Serial Modbus to the newer serial plug-in modbus.   

3) The use of brains if much more extensive and replaces the use of the 'legacy' serial modbus register commands

4) Most of the code has been streamlined and optimised now and overall response time is improved for most functions, especially for E-stop.

There is no info posted on the new upgrade, but you can read the specs and see a video of the development and operation at www.theInTurn.com

The servo drive that you chose should have enable/disable capability. None of the hobby level drives have this so far as I know. The drive I recommend for DC is the Copley Accelnet. If you are accustomed to hobby level drive prices (Gecko, Dugong and the newer versions, Viper, Leadshine, etc), the cost of the Copley might seem quite high, but it is a commercial/industrial level drive and it priced competitively and actually far below the AC drives from Mitsubishi, Yaskawa, AB and so on.

all I can say is wow I have read the thread backward and forward. everything is unbelievably well documented  except the balancer it looks home built as well. I am very interested in the harmonic balancer

I think you are referring to the dynamic balancer. Yes, it is a 'home brew' machine. I wanted to purchase a commercial balancer, and I still may at some point, but the machines are just way, way too expensive to justify at this point. I am able to do an acceptable balance with my balancer, it just takes longer . .  a lot longer actually. However the end result is similar. Having a spindle balanced at a commersial shop runs between $200 to $250 for the level needed by a 4th axis.

For liability reasons,  I do not release any information about the balancer, and I do not sell them. It is going thru a rebuild and upgrade right now to increase its balance speed from 4k RPM (InTurn™ 4th axis ) to 8K RPM (new BT30 spindle).

What I can do is describe the basic operation using a broad brush and you would need to take it from there.

1) A 'floating' carriage holds the item to be balanced
2) when the item is spun, the carriage oscillates as a result of the imbalance
3) a sensor, either pressure or accelerometer, records the movements while an absolute encode simultaneously records the azimuth.
4) Software calculates the amount and position of the imbalance.
5) the item rotation is stopped and the item is turned by hand to the exact imbalance point as shown by the controller.
6) weight is added to the light side or taken off the heavy side and the process is repeated.

An Atmel processor (on an Arduino MEGA development board) is used for data acquisition only and the data (sensor reads) that is collected on each run is sent over a serial connection to a program on the PC for the calculations.

My upgrade of the balancer involved beefing up the floating carriage and swapping out the current 16bit 16MHz processor (Arduino MEGA) for the new 32 bit 84MHz Atmel processor (Arduino DUE)  which is 4 to 5 times faster and moving from analog to digital accelerometer. Hopefully these improvements will allow fast enough data collection for an 8K RPM balance.

I hope this is of some help to you

An Atmel processor (on an Arduino MEGA development board) is used for data acquisition only and the data (sensor reads) that is collected on each run is sent over a serial connection to a program on the PC for the calculations.

Is it a commercial program or some code of your own?

Dan