Rotary Attachment for Rabbit Laser

[Michele Welch]

Hi y'all!

I'm ready to add a rotary attachment to my machine and I know that Rabbit Laser sells a couple of different types of rotary attachments for QX-80-1290. Does anyone have any experience with either good or bad? Any recommendations? They are both the same price, $490, so I guess it boils down to which is better. So any recommendations???

Thanks,
Michele

[Kevin Braat]

It depends on what you plan on engraving on. The roller style is good for baseball bats, wine bottles and round objects with no other offset features. The chuck style works better for odd shapes with offset features - coffee mugs with handles, for example. If you put a coffee mug one the roller, the handle will often drag the part when it goes near the center line and shift/ruin the engraving. With the chuck style you have some options to grip the part better.

[Michele Welch]

Thanks Kevin,

I'm planning on doing beer mugs (the big 28 oz ones and smaller ones), coffee mugs, rolling pins, bats, pens, etc. I'm sorry I should have put that in my original post. So will the chuck style do everything, especially being better for the items with handles, and everything else that the roller style does?

Thanks again!
Michele

It depends on what you plan on engraving on. The roller style is good for baseball bats, wine bottles and round objects with no other offset features. The chuck style works better for odd shapes with offset features - coffee mugs with handles, for example. If you put a coffee mug one the roller, the handle will often drag the part when it goes near the center line and shift/ruin the engraving. With the chuck style you have some options to grip the part better.

[Bill Carruthers]

FWIW, Michele I have both types and have only used roller twice (once to see if it worked and on one other job) but have frequently used the chuck type over the years for a variety of items - one thing to note is that a roller type can be considerably quicker in production of multiple round items because you don't have to open and close the chuck after each item, but the chuck type is much more versatile.

[Kevin Braat]

If the main target was mugs and pens, I would go with the chuck style. For rolling pins and bats or wine bottles, the chuck may not open large enough or hold well enough on the end for the size of the parts, so the roller is best. I own both.

If I had to do it all again, I would go with the chuck style and make the chuck drive a set of rollers for the larger items. After seeing both in person, if you are a bit mechanical, you could get the chuck style and build an add on to drive some rotary rollers. Both items are just a motor driving rollers with a belt connecting them or a chuck that can be purchased from any metalworking catalog.

[Michele Welch]

Thanks for the replies Kevin. I'm still up in the air about which one I want. I want whatever is going to be most useful, but the majority of what I would use it for is beer mugs, pint glasses, etc.

[daniel hernandez]

Michele, which one did you go with?
I'm now going through the same decision making process. Will be doing YETI cups, but not sure if I should go with chuck or roller; any feed back would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dan

[Kev Williams]

I've never had a roller, but for 26 years I've had a basic 20" vinyl cutter. And for all intents & purposes, it's a "roller" machine, as pinch rollers move the vinyl back & forth...

And based on the miles of vinyl I've had to throw out over the years because the vinyl didn't track straight, I'd never trust anything but a chuck-style rotary for lasering. Especially considering what Yeti's cost... I have a customer who sells Hydroflasks with her logo on them as fast as she can buy them and get them out of my shop. These things are powdercoated, and some of them take 4 or 5 passes to get a clean burn. A chuck rotary will faithfully run a 5-pass job. Or a 105 pass job. A hot-dog rotary, chances are good that by the third pass you'll be well into misaligned engraving and severe pain from gnashing your teeth ...

[David Somers]

Michele,

One thought on the chuck. If you get some Delrin you can make jaws that either fit over the existing jaws or replaces them. That allows you to expand the diameter the chuck can grab, within the limits of the structure of the unit of course. I have a straight Chinese unit, not a Rabbit. My rotary is a chuck unit. I removed the base and fashioned a new base that give me a much greater diamter to work with. My next trick once the rains start here again will be to make a base that can be angled so I can engrave on the shoulder of a vase or bowl. In otherwords, so I can angle the piece so that the shoulder is level with the plane of the laser. That wont work on all pieces of course. Will see how that goes.

Just some thoughts for you.

Dave

[Klaus Madsen]

Michele,

One thought on the chuck. If you get some Delrin you can make jaws that either fit over the existing jaws or replaces them. That allows you to expand the diameter the chuck can grab, within the limits of the structure of the unit of course. I have a straight Chinese unit, not a Rabbit. My rotary is a chuck unit. I removed the base and fashioned a new base that give me a much greater diamter to work with. My next trick once the rains start here again will be to make a base that can be angled so I can engrave on the shoulder of a vase or bowl. In otherwords, so I can angle the piece so that the shoulder is level with the plane of the laser. That wont work on all pieces of course. Will see how that goes.

Just some thoughts for you.

Dave

So when you successfully have made the angled one, you will, of course, share how to make it in here

[Bill Carruthers]

Michele,

One thought on the chuck. If you get some Delrin you can make jaws that either fit over the existing jaws or replaces them. That allows you to expand the diameter the chuck can grab, within the limits of the structure of the unit of course. I have a straight Chinese unit, not a Rabbit. My rotary is a chuck unit. I removed the base and fashioned a new base that give me a much greater diamter to work with. My next trick once the rains start here again will be to make a base that can be angled so I can engrave on the shoulder of a vase or bowl. In otherwords, so I can angle the piece so that the shoulder is level with the plane of the laser. That wont work on all pieces of course. Will see how that goes.
Dave

Hi Dave - I am probably not visualising your idea for angling the piece properly, but many have found that you can achieve something similar to what I think you may be trying to do, by simply raising one end of the rotary unit to the angle you wish and then lasering.
If that is not what you had in mind then I would also be interested in your incipient invention....
Cheers

[David Somers]

Hey Bill...I was trying to both work on that angle and increase the available height of the rotary spindle. This essentially does what you describe, but will be part of the base of the rotary and hopefully more stable than just raising one end. Nothing fancy. Raising one end would do the same thing, except for increasing the spindle clearance. Once I make it up will post it along with the cut files for it.

Dave

[Doug Fisher]

Hey Dave -

Did you ever get around to building your rotary modification?

[John Kleiber]

Buy both chuck and roller style.