New Thru Spindle With Daul Chucks

Mason,

While agree that steppers are not very strong and that strength does drop off rapidly as the speed goes up, they are certainly strong enough for this task.

We have numerous machines for turning and they all use steppers to turn the spindles. Our smaller single spindle machines actually use small steppers, but the double and quad spindle machines use larger motors. They are all nema 23 though.

Now we do use live tooling to do the cutting, so the load is very small, but that really is the best way to do the cutting for both shafts and butts.

Royce Bunnell
www.obcues.com
 
ho wfast are you turning the wood?are you using a saw or router?


i have experimented with the steppers turning the wood and it seems like 200-300rpm is the max and even then the steppers are whining a little.

if i was making a machine i would definitely not use them.the align-rite my buddy has spins the wood at 450rpm and you can cut shafts at 50+ in/min smoother than a saw blade.i haven't seen anything that spins wood with steppers work like that.

i have a machine that uses a NEMA 23 stepper to turn the wood and 15 in/min or so appears to be the max for tapering.

if you are cutting them fast and smooth qith a router and stepper for a spindle,i might need to enlist your help.
 
Royce:
Is there any special reason for using steppers when you actually use it as a spinning motor for live turning? Why not use a DC motor which is designed to do RPMs ?
I was just curious since I have gone for the DC motor for tappering of buts and have not considered a stepper for this :)

Kent
 
masonh said:
if you are cutting them fast and smooth qith a router and stepper for a spindle,i might need to enlist your help.


We use a lathe with a custom taper bar, large router/fixture. 2 minutes or less per turn. Very nice cuts, no chatter. We do slow down, when getting to the final turns when the ringwork has been added. Never a problem. Don't like most of the saw machines I've seen, I think there was a bludworth that got may attention once. Brother wants to convert our shaft lathe w/5-7 more spindles so we can cut up to 8 shafts at once.:eek: Don't know, maybe, I hate to touch our machine, it's a champ.
 
you are using the lathe sopindle to turn the wood though,right?

my machine uses a stepper to turn the wood and for tapering fast and smooth it isn't as good as some other ways to do it.
 
masonh said:
you are using the lathe sopindle to turn the wood though,right?

If you refer to me Mason, Yes I do. The lathe is mounted under my gantry to do tapering but I'm still in the learning phase so I have not made much dust with the machine. Not to mention that it's placed 1300Km from where I live and is basically bought for experimenting and cue but designs, not shafts :frown:

K
 
He he.

Time is 00:40 locally so I guess that could have something to do with it that I did'nt catch that..

K
 
The reason we use steppers is because we have found different ideal speeds for different turnings. y using steppers, we can let the program control our spindle speed for us. We have some cuts that have speed changes between passes.

Remember, at first, we are turning flat laminated maple down to straight dowels. We use different rotational speeds for different cuts. Sometimes we turn at one speed going out and a different speed coming back. We have speeds that go as high as 350 rpm.

The faster the rotational speed the more "across" the shaft the line of cut is. When that angle "across" the shaft exceeds the relief angle on the side of the tooth, you will stop cutting and the shaft will "push off" to the side.

I can't say that we know it all, but we have tried many different things. We do make 100 to 150 gallons of sawdust every day!

Royce Bunnell
www.obcues.com
 
Mason,

Actually, we are using both.

Really, the only difference between saws and routers is the tip speed. The router turns much faster at 30,000 rpm, but it is small diameter, 1 7/8". The saw is much slower at 3500 rpm, but it is also 10" in diameter.

The router has a faster tip speed, but they both make a slot in the wood. The faster the wood turns, the more the "angle" of that slot. When the angle of the slot becomes more than the relief angle on the side of the tooth, the tooth stops cutting with the leading edge. Therefore, if the wood turns too fast, the angle will be too steep and the tip will stop cutting. This is when chatter occurs.

If you are taking off only a few thousandths, then it doesn't matter because the slot cut is so shallow that the slot is very short. Also, the smaller the diameter, the shorter the slot for the same depth.

Basically, if you take a deep cut at to high an rpm, you will get push off.


Royce Bunnell
www.obcues.com
 
steppers work the best

like royce said with the stepper and using mach3 you can taylor the program to do just what you want it to we are using a nema 34 stepper. Our storm and our lighting can do anything the 15k alignrite can for $5500.00 plus our storm is much stronger then anything on the market for doing cues. and i said we delievered 2 storm's, the daul chuck is in the works and will not be done til the open on the 19th of October we will have 2 storms, 2 breeze, and 2 lightnings for sale there plus over 300 cues and hundreds of our cuemakering tools fixtures and jigs this will be our largest us open booth since we have been doing it, our first year was 1988
 
RBC said:
The reason we use steppers is because we have found different ideal speeds for different turnings. y using steppers, we can let the program control our spindle speed for us. We have some cuts that have speed changes between passes.
Royce Bunnell
www.obcues.com


For a auto setup I totally understand that you would like to use the steppers and let the machine/program do the different sequences with respect of different passes :) But does the steppers not turn hot ?

And thank's for you're explanation, greeny from me to :thumbup2:

Kent
 
brianna187 said:
like royce said with the stepper and using mach3 you can taylor the program to do just what you want it to we are using a nema 34 stepper. Our storm and our lighting can do anything the 15k alignrite can for $5500.00 plus our storm is much stronger then anything on the market for doing cues. and i said we delievered 2 storm's, the daul chuck is in the works and will not be done til the open on the 19th of October we will have 2 storms, 2 breeze, and 2 lightnings for sale there plus over 300 cues and hundreds of our cuemakering tools fixtures and jigs this will be our largest us open booth since we have been doing it, our first year was 1988
That'd be great. With the stepper motor, you can also reverse the revolution on the go.
 
JoeyInCali said:
That'd be great. With the stepper motor, you can also reverse the revolution on the go.
may get a little warm nothing wrong with that
i used one all day with no issues
 
JoeyInCali said:
With the stepper motor, you can also reverse the revolution on the go.

Sure, but that can be a great way to loose steps if you reverse too much mass too agressively (and want to maintain an understanding of the position).

Dave
 
Our storm and our lighting can do anything the 15k alignrite can for $5500.00 plus our storm is much stronger then anything on the market for doing cues. and i said we delievered 2 storm's,


do you have pictures?
 
DaveK said:
Sure, but that can be a great way to loose steps if you reverse too much mass too agressively (and want to maintain an understanding of the position).

Dave
How much mass would be too agressive? :smile:
I think dwelling for 5 seconds at the end of one pass, while stopping the A revolution and reversing, is reasonable.
Maybe M5 the spindle too for a few seconds.
 
DaveK said:
Sure, but that can be a great way to loose steps if you reverse too much mass too agressively (and want to maintain an understanding of the position).

Dave

Is not that the reason that you can set ramp speeds so as to eliminate such occurrences?

Dick
 
Back
Top