hello welcome to Enots engineering I'm Alan
a few weeks ago I showed you this rotary head or dividing head this was a prototype that's made out of MDF
I showed you how it worked and explained that I was going to make one out of aluminium
this one can be used on the lathe or on the mill
but we had some problems with this being MDF
when you come to clamp it down it didn't clamp very well
it would tend to crush the MDF rather than clamp
so we decided to make one out of aluminium
and today we'll see how we've progressed with the aluminium version what problems I had
so let's go into the workshop and see how we made it.
Because I'm taking the plates on and off and I have six plates that go on and off
I've bolted some large washers to the table, clocked up the plate square
move the washers until they touch the plate and lock them.
push the plate up against the washers bolted the plate down
andI've just checked the it's square to the table
so next time I can take the clamps off take the plate off and the
next plate will just go up against the washers and I know it's square
when I'm machining this outside edge
this is how I've set up for doing the plates
I've put a big thick washer at the back there and two at the side
and I touch the plate up against these two and slide it back to the back one and clamp it
so when I machine along the front edge to my zero on the table
I know that all the plates are machined exactly the same size
what I'm doing at the moment I'm machining some slots around the each panel
and these are clamping holes that's so that when this is on the machine I can
put a clamp bar in the hole to hold it down onto the machine
and I'm doing the same pattern on each side
these are so if I have it on the side I can use these
and if I have it on the end with the chuck on the top I can use one on each side
now this is the finished pocket for the stepper motor
so all I need to do next is drill the four holes that bolt the motor in
and complete the hole in the middle for the register and the spindle to go through
this is one of the two plates that are inside the box and this holds the stepper motor
I've just finished drilling the holes for the stepper motor and this one here is the
center point where I want the bearing race to locate for the spindle
as I want them both in the same position I've set my parallel strip here which is against these stops
there's a stop block at the back here I know this corner position
I can then put another block in locate it up against there on this side
and the centre hole will be in the same position relative to the outside
now I thought I'd be able to do this on my lathe but the problem I have is
my lathe has only a 5 inch centre hight
and this one is 5 and 3/4 to this corner
so I won't be able to put that on the faceplate and bore out the bearing bore
so what I've done at the moment is centre drilled it
So I can pick that up with the centre at a later date
and I'll do the other one now
so I know that centre drill is in the same position
now on this one because it's the opposite in other words
when I bore the bearing bore I need to put a lip on the inside
so the bearing doesn't go straight through this one the lip needs to be on the other side
so I need to bore from the back of this in
So I'm going to drill a 8 millimeter hole straight through
so that I can pick up the centre when I have the plate mounted on the other side
okay this is a project so far the stepper motor goes in there
we made a pocket
so that when the motor goes in it goes right in, recessed in here
and the four holes are there ready for the screws to locate the stepper motor
all I need to do on this is bore the register out it's a hole through there 38.1mm
and then the stepper motor will come in a little bit further about 2mm that can be bolted on
this is where the main bearings going to go on this side
so or go in from side with the recess to stop you going through
The sides
each side has these cutouts machined in I'm going to drill four
holes which line up with these partitions
so I can screw into this and hold that plate to this
Then I've got the back plate with the groove for the partition
Fits on there
and the top plate on there
and all these plates will be held through the top through the side to the center plates
on the front there's the other plate
that will be screwed all the way around and that will have the bearing for the spindle
and on the back inside
We will have the pulley on the spindle
just drilling the holes now for the screws
I've already drilled all the holes in the panels were I want the screws to be
now I'm drilling through into the internal panel the end panel - to tapping size
I've just set my depth stop on the machine so that the counter sink stops at the right depth
the holes that are drilled in here which were five mil I've opened up to six mil
so the counter sunk screw will go through
it's all that remains is to put the counter sink in
to do that I've slowed the speed down to 75 RPM
Thats just below the surface next job is to tap these holes around the block
so I will just counter sink
and then I'll follow that up with the next tap
that's that side done do that on the four sides
I've just assembled the case
you can see here I've used the counter sunk crews these slots are for clamps
so I can clamp it down in that position
use these the clamp it
the chuck goes on the top here
so I can turn around to any position all the sides have got the same positions for the clamps
the next jobs to do is on the stepper motor there's a register
so I need to cut on the other side of this plate the register
I need to bore out the two holes for the bearings in here and on the faceplate
now I've looked at the lathe to do that and the problem is I haven't got the swing
the only other option I have is to get a boring head
and bore this out using the mill
so what I thought I'd do as this one is not so important
once I get a boring head I can test it out on the smaller hole
to see how accurate I can get with the boring head in the mill
before I go on to the bearing holes
so not many jobs to do one two three bores
I've still got to make a back door
this was the tensioner that I used before which is far too big
I found this bearing so what what I'll do is modify the offset so that fits the bearing
and then once I have the belt fitted across the two
I can then position the centre hole for this
so that can put tension on the belt it doesn't need a lot of tension being a toothed belt
well that's it so for her it's taken a lot of time to machine this and get this to this state
at the moment I'm stuck awaiting delivery of a boring head
well that's it for today hope that was useful
and we'll see you next time on
Enots engineering