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View Full Version : Fun with my home made rotary...



Brian Lamb
12-11-2017, 9:19 PM
I wanted a rotary for the ULS since I got it, didn't really want to pay big bucks for one though. I had a 5C indexer laying around so I modified it and fit up a stepper and manage to make my own indexer. Been done for a while, just hadn't gotten round to testing it out other than burning "Test" into a wood dowel. Picked up some 20oz Tumblers the other day and decided to give it a go. Results are as good as I could have hoped for.


Cup sitting on the jig
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Mandrel I made to fit the cups, needed a piece of tape to make the cup snug on there

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Results of one logo (for my local home machine shop club)

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And the logo I use

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And if you are really bored, a youtube of the engraving.... I know watching a rotary engrave is about as fun as watching paint dry...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P01EfGshaPw

Keith Outten
12-11-2017, 11:56 PM
Brian,

Slick idea using the spin index.

Jeff Watkins
12-12-2017, 1:28 AM
Great job Brian, Ingenuity at it's finest! I get slippage on my roller rotary once in awhile and was looking at doing something like this. Do you measure the diameter of the tumbler and plug that into your ULS software? I've been meaning to stop in at ULS and see if I can get a tour. They make some nice machines.

Mike Null
12-12-2017, 9:54 AM
That's impressive.

Brian Lamb
12-12-2017, 11:45 AM
Thanks guys, that means a lot to me. Keith, yes, I had the spindex, think I paid $40 for it at a swap meet and already have a wealth of 5C collets and such, so it seemed like a good candidate to test out the concept. I already have it all drawn up in CAD to produce some using other components and have it be more along the lines of available rotary units. Just have to put the stuff through my CNC mill.

Jeff, yes, you put the diameter into the ULS driver and it outputs the Y height of your page in Corel, basically 3.1416 x diameter. I have a home switch on the rotary, so it goes back to home after every part. I load the graphic centered on the page in the Y direction and that will put center of the graphic 180º away from where I load the cup.

Thanks Mike!

Chris M Jones
02-07-2018, 12:57 PM
Brian, shoot me a PM. I am trying to figure out how to get my Chinese chuck style rotary going in my VLS6.60. Could use some of your wisdom in helping me achieve my goals. I saw the pinout in your post early last year.