Rotary Options

[mike.davison]

Originally Posted by DVE2000

So just to make sure I’m not misunderstanding, most of the machining is done on the table, right? Rotary is just for rounding and spirals and flutes.

If it's a wide-ish spindle, yes. If it's a narrow-ish spindle you can eek out enough X range on the rotary, especially with a wider cutter. Also, some folks have moved the rotary in an X- direction a little to get a bit more X range over the rotary. I've not done this (yet).

Example: my Stinger II has .75" X+ range beyond the rotary centerline. Use a wide flat cutter and you can easily flatten a 4" wide spindle on the rotary. Narrow-ish. Move the rotary inboard .5" and you can now flatten a 5" wide area. That's probably pushing the capabilities of the A axis stepper.

So.... flat milling on the rotary can be done with several flat jobs, manually rotating the stock between those flat jobs or one can do a clever hack to do so on the rotary. Gary Campbell presented some ideas on this at McGrews a couple years ago and i posted a message about applying it at http://www.camheads.org/showthread.php?t=7441. Credit for the idea goes to Gary, typos/insanity are mine. This approach works pretty well for those narrow-ish spindles.

Wide-ish spindles require flat work and, well, that opens a can of worms too as many machines, my dandy Stringer II for example, have limited gantry height so wide-ish is not simple there either. You're limited to about a 6" spindle there without modifying the machine. I had to move the spindle up in it's mount from the factory-installed position to get close to 6" of effective clearance. Ordering your machine with extra gantry clearance would be a good choice for this sort of work. Some folks cut out a portion of the spoil board to get greater Z clearance.

So.... the Vectric approach is pretty easy and documented. The methods outlined above work better for flat areas, but require some gymnastics on your part.

Let us know what methods you find work well. Good luck!

[DVE2000]

Thanks to your post in my newb thread, I did upgrade to the gantry extension.

And it's funny - I have that thread you posted opened up in a permanent window in Safari so that I can reference it when needed. :)

I also wanted to do 3D carvings on two of the flat sides of each square section. It's good to know that I can probably make them 1.5" wide while leaving everything on the rotary.

[Jim_in_PA]

Originally Posted by DVE2000

So just to make sure I’m not misunderstanding, most of the machining is done on the table, right? Rotary is just for rounding and spirals and flutes.

You "can" to it that way, but pretty much every example I've seen of using the recoil was start-to-finish from "rough" stock.

[Ger21]

I would do the mortises on the rotary as well.

But there are a couple issues here.


1) Aspire does not make it easy, as you can't index in Aspire.


If the mortises are all in the same location, then you can simply copy and paste the code, and insert the rotation commands.


2) With your stock already at finished size, you may have some trouble with tearout at the transition from round to square.




I'd probably leave the stock slightly oversize, and do all the rotary stuff first.
Then, in a separate program, go back and face off the flats, and pocket the mortises. Mortises first.

[DVE2000]

Originally Posted by Ger21

I would do the mortises on the rotary as well.

But there are a couple issues here.


1) Aspire does not make it easy, as you can't index in Aspire.


If the mortises are all in the same location, then you can simply copy and paste the code, and insert the rotation commands.


2) With your stock already at finished size, you may have some trouble with tearout at the transition from round to square.




I'd probably leave the stock slightly oversize, and do all the rotary stuff first.
Then, in a separate program, go back and face off the flats, and pocket the mortises. Mortises first.

Thanks, Gerry! That makes a lot of sense. Insightful as always...

[mike.davison]

Originally Posted by Gary Campbell

Here is the last rotary based video for Jim's Camp.

Done in VCPro, no rotary wrapped job required. The quickest way I have found to develop a rotary 3D profile. Pay no attention to the ugly shape, this is a "proof of concept"

https://youtu.be/9bLnP9R7bE0

Gary,

Heh. Only 2 years later....

I've been poking around with rotary work again and wanted to get constant rotation spindle turning (something like what you show in this video) going. But, I don't really understand the example and, sadly, I didn't make it to Jim's when you apparently explained. So, would you mind explaining here?

I've toyed with spiral tool paths projected onto a 3d model -- doesn't seem to work.

I've toyed with a post-postprocessor that changes the generated G code to do the desired thing. Pretty sure I could get there that way, but if I can avoid writing a post-postprocessor I will.

Thanks!