I wanted to do that one day... I got two steper motors, and put one on the X axis, and one on the RT. Sure worked slick! Took about 30 minutes to make a temporary (not pretty) mount. Cheaper, faster, slicker than finding the right gears, and all the mechanics of it.
--Did something similar once; built a machine for Helical Products to machine helical couplings, heh. We direct coupled the X-axis leadscrew to a custom indexer, then changed gear ratios as needed to get correct 'pitch'. What made it interesting was the multiple-start thread.
H-N:
Could you please elaborate a little on your set-up, because this "electronic gearing" with a master and slave axis has many applications.
Eg., what software did you use, or did you write the program yourself? Any peculiarities you encountered/solved? Did you put an enoder on the "master" axis?
Any tips for someone to replicate your set-up?
Thanks,
Wolfgang
Thinking about gearing a universal indexer to the x axis of my BP to do spiral cuts. Several pitches needed, thus need some kind of gear matrix. Anybody familiar with that?
cheers T.Alan
Did you fabricate the gear change system or did you use an existing setup ?
cheers T.Alan
--We took off the feed dial and replaced it with a timing pulley, then used a similar pulley on the back of the indexer. Once height of indexer had been shimmed up to tighten a cog belt we were good to go without backlash. --The other thing we did is change the pulleys in the head because we needed a spindle speed of around 5,000rpm for an unusual tapered endmill which had to cut to depth in many shallow passes.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.