I just picked up this International 16" rotary table today. Drove all day to get it. Didn't know if it would be too big or not until I set it on the mill. What do you think?
It is an awesome piece of machinery. It has absolutely rock solid positioning of the motor driven table. It will actually swing 150 degrees, so it will go within 30 degrees of laying over on it's face. The positioning scale is insanely accurate. It can be fine positioned by hand to exactly where you want it. The rotary movement is smooth and solid as a rock, but there is a bit of backlash in the hand wheel. I was debating using a couple of my spare mill stepper motors to turn this thing into a fourth axis. I don't think it would be hard to do.
The problem is, it takes up so much room on the mill table. I set it all the way on just to check it out, but I could probably move it back about five inches and let the rotary base hang off the mill table by that much and be OK. The thing is so heavy I could probably cut parts without even bolting it down, but I gotta get it squared up. I'll have to make some T bolts and cut some mounting slots to fit the Bridgeport table.
With the Bridgeport knee all the way down, I only have about five inches above the rotary table center to work. That means I could do up to a 10" diameter workpiece by keeping all the work on the top half. That's about as big as the Bridgeport can handle on the Y axis anyway. I never do anything that big, so I should be good.
I think the center hole is a Morse taper, but I don't have anything that big to check it with. I'll have to make an adapter to mount my lathe chuck on it.
Does anyone know where I can find documentation for this thing? Anybody want to trade for a smaller one of equal quality, like maybe a 10"? I'm a little worried about the effect all that weight hanging way out on the left end will have on the mill table ways.
There is another one just like it (except it doesn't have a motor driven tilt) for sale on Ebay here;
International Precision Rotary Table (Inv.873) | eBay
The first photo shows the table at 45 degrees.
The next one shows the motor side.
This is the tilt scale.
This shows the table at 90 degrees.
Another 90 degree shot.
It is an awesome piece of machinery. It has absolutely rock solid positioning of the motor driven table. It will actually swing 150 degrees, so it will go within 30 degrees of laying over on it's face. The positioning scale is insanely accurate. It can be fine positioned by hand to exactly where you want it. The rotary movement is smooth and solid as a rock, but there is a bit of backlash in the hand wheel. I was debating using a couple of my spare mill stepper motors to turn this thing into a fourth axis. I don't think it would be hard to do.
The problem is, it takes up so much room on the mill table. I set it all the way on just to check it out, but I could probably move it back about five inches and let the rotary base hang off the mill table by that much and be OK. The thing is so heavy I could probably cut parts without even bolting it down, but I gotta get it squared up. I'll have to make some T bolts and cut some mounting slots to fit the Bridgeport table.
With the Bridgeport knee all the way down, I only have about five inches above the rotary table center to work. That means I could do up to a 10" diameter workpiece by keeping all the work on the top half. That's about as big as the Bridgeport can handle on the Y axis anyway. I never do anything that big, so I should be good.
I think the center hole is a Morse taper, but I don't have anything that big to check it with. I'll have to make an adapter to mount my lathe chuck on it.
Does anyone know where I can find documentation for this thing? Anybody want to trade for a smaller one of equal quality, like maybe a 10"? I'm a little worried about the effect all that weight hanging way out on the left end will have on the mill table ways.
There is another one just like it (except it doesn't have a motor driven tilt) for sale on Ebay here;
International Precision Rotary Table (Inv.873) | eBay
The first photo shows the table at 45 degrees.
The next one shows the motor side.
This is the tilt scale.
This shows the table at 90 degrees.
Another 90 degree shot.