Chinese Rotary Attatchment on an Epilog Fusion.

[Mitchell Tutty]

Years ago we had a chinese laser that came with a rotary attachment. For various reasons the chinese laser just wasn't for us and we sold for it parts. But, we did keep the rotary attachment it came with. Now, I have been running an 60w Epilog Fusion for almost 8 months now, and am looking at getting a rotary attachment. Is there any chance I can force my Epilog to run with a chinese rotary attachment? First problem is they have different male and female plugs as well as I presume the Epilog is not going to sense the rotary attachment like it does the Epilog one.
Has anybody had any luck in using a chinese rotary attachment?
Am i going to blow anything up by playing with the electronics of it?

All help would be appreciated, thank you!

[Scott Shepherd]

You are a braver man than I am. I wouldn't dream of plugging something like that into my $40,000-50,000 Fusion. Best case, you figure it out. Worst case, you fry something and void your warranty.

[matthew knott]

There are many obstacles in the way of doing this, the motor will almost certainly be wrong, chinese tend to use 3 phase stepper motors where as the epilog is 2 phase, even if the motor had the right number of phases it would have to have the correct wiring configuration (uni-polar 6 wire) and the correct impedance/voltage rating. Even if you overcome all that then the gearing needs to be right and if its not the roller type (not 3 jaw chuck) then the thing wont be calibrated.
You most certainly can blow the thing up if you dont know what your doing, i would say a good chance even if you did. IMHO it would be folly to try and save a few $$$ and risk blowing up and expensive and new machine, if epilog get wind you where tinkering i doubt they would cover the damage by warranty.

[Mitchell Tutty]

Wont touch it then, that's more then enough warning then I'm going to need.
Thank you all!

Anybody want to buy a chinese rotary attachment? ;)

[Kim Vellore]

One thing you could do is, use the same motor that Epilog uses and wire it the same way. If Epilog uses stepper motor for your rotary then you could easily adapt it to a new motor since the sizes are standard. I have made a couple of attachments myself for the epilog legend, mainly because the epilog motor heats up quite a bit and I also change the resolution of the rotation so I could get finer engraving for small diameter objects. As for the gearing ratio you can easily calibrate that and correct for it in your drawing program. Kim

[Dan Hintz]

One thing you could do is, use the same motor that Epilog uses and wire it the same way.

This is about the only way I would suggest attacking this problem. If you even have to ask your first question, then you're not electrically savvy enough to attempt using what you currently have without risking damage. If you swap motors, at least you're only using the mechanical frame. I don't believe there are any "smarts" in the rotary, so any recognition the machine has of the rotary will consist merely of "Something has been plugged into me.".