Thinking about electronic rotary table or 4th axis
Hey gentlemen. I have the 440 and have really been needing that 4th axis of some sort Tormach shows a electronic rotary table that looks interesting, even tiltable. If am understanding correctly, it doesn't look like its available for the ugly step child (440) so that leads me to the 4th axis model. I mean, 4th axis is a 4th axis, but they have different features. Anyway, anyone here have one of these on a 440? IS it worth 3k? I am at a loss how I CAM (fusion360) with it. Is it really only controlled via PP conversational?
This is going to be funded via my tax return, but if it's glitchy or limited capability in F360, maybe I'll pass. I like to make flashlights and I feel like this could really increase my capabilities, but maybe I'm putting too much in this? I did a search here but surprising very little turned up.
Re: Thinking about electronic rotary table or 4th axis
I've been looking at the microARC 4th axis for my 440 as well, but so far not taken the plunge, mainly because I'm too busy with other things to really use it.
As far as I understand it, it will work fine in Fusion, similar to any other 4th axis, assuming you have a paid-for variant of Fusion that actually supports it. There are three kinds of tool paths; one is indexing-like "orient the axis once, and then run a tool, then orient the axis for the next tool;" you set these up with the "tool orientation" setting, rotating it around your X axis. The second is full 4/5D tool paths where you'd do something like swarfing; there's a recent feature to limit this to 4D. Finally, there's the "unwrap 2D" machining mode, which allows you to generate simultaneous moves of the rotation axis and the positional axes.
FWIW, this kind of support in Fusion (both "indexing / orientation" and "5D") are robust and have been used in industry for years, so I expect it to not be glitchy.
Re: Thinking about electronic rotary table or 4th axis
Those micro arcs look like a nice addition! Accurate and they dont weigh 200 lbs like my 8" super spacer. Cam software and the gcode it spits out most the time is straight forward. As jwatte mentions indexed operations are same as any other mill operation it just starts with an indexed rotary move then the mill operation begins. The index operation could easily be hand coded. Some Rotary milling and wrapped operations are also pretty straight forward to use. Then The last group 3-5d maybe in fusion this is easy! In sprutcam it has dozens of options for flank, tip, edge, tool cutting options and same dozen options for path control, imho a user can spend years learning what works and refining the process. Just the job selection of features can be difficult and even vary depending on how the model was drawn in cad and imported into cam. These standards are not always the same for surfaces and can come back to haunt you. I guess fusion has both model and cam in same program so maybe it will play better. I know from experience that is not the case with other cam / cad combinations.
Example: In the 8l lathe thread I show a tiny chess pawn with the round head in a picture I had to model the round head a few different ways before It imported correctly and the cam software understood what it was looking at so to speak. .
Last edited by mountaindew; 01-30-2021 at 08:59 AM.
Re: Thinking about electronic rotary table or 4th axis
Most appreciated guys. I'm doing the research and was wondering if the limited space of 440, if other found it too cumbersome as well. It sure could speed up a lot of operations though I'm not the most proficient in Fusion... I'll have to poke around a bit more.
Thinking about electronic rotary table or 4th axis
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I had to model the round head a few different ways before It imported correctly and the cam software understood what it was looking at so to speak. .
