Hello, I believe @Bwil415 has the most experience with the rotary axis of our CNC Machine and I got the general check out this week. I was wondering if there is information in the SOP notebooks about using the rotary axis?
I believe I have figured out what I need from V-Carve, but zeroing the Z-axis and A-axis is something I can’t find good info on with my Google skills, and I haven’t been able to make it to the space to check it in person yet.
Thanks!
If there isn’t any documentation yet, @Evelyn and I can probably work together to pull something together since she showed interest in my project anyway.
To my knowledge, there’s currently nothing. @RealCarlRaymond and I are the ones in charge of the machine, and neither of us have run the rotary
If it works for you, I’ll try to come in on a future shift of yours and we can trouble shoot together. If you’d like to start an SOP for the rotary, I’d really appreciate it
It’s been a while so I don’t remember a lot of details but yes I did a couple projects on the rotary axis. There are no SOPs specific to it. I think the tricky part is just getting the job set up in VCarve. I think it requires using a different post-processor when exporting the gcode. I must have had one set up on the lab computer.
On the machine, I don’t think it’s much different from doing non-rotary programs. You have to set the origin where the X axis is on the rotary centerline, the Y axis is somewhere along it, and Z is either on the centerline or the surface of your stock (depending on your VCarve setup). I always used the axis centerline for Z and that offset may still be set up in the machine (look at the descriptions in the origin table). The way I set it up originally was putting a V-bit in the spindle and just manually jogging to line up the sharp tip with the point on the tailstock or you could put a lathe center in the chuck. @RealCarlRaymond may know some machinists tricks to get a more accurate alignment between spindle and rotary axis.
One complication I remember is that because the rotary axis is below the level of the main spoil board, there is not enough travel in the Z axis to reach the centerline of the rotary axis with short tools.
Happy cutting. If you run into any issues tag me in this thread and I can try to help.
